Sister Wives star Maddie Brown opened up about what her family’s life was like before they began appearing on the TLC series.
“Before the show, we were very poor,” Maddie, 29, recalled on the Monday, December 9, episode of her “The Authentic Society” podcast. “I think my dad made decent money, but you have, like, 15 kids. Like, a lot of kids.”
The reality star explained that it took some work to readjust her feelings around money when she married husband Caleb Brush in 2016.
“I think that we inherit so much of our thought process around money from our parents,” she said. “My dad always chose the get-rich-quick scheme, almost always. It was such a foreign thought to Caleb. And I remember explaining some ideas to him, and he was like, ‘No, no.’”
Since their wedding, Maddie and Caleb, 37, have been trying to “build stability” with their finances.
“We did a lot of work on that together, because [the] poverty mindset is such an interesting thing, especially when it comes to money,” she said. “Because when we got our tax returns when we were younger, my parents immediately spent it on something. And Caleb’s family were both educated and they did not. They saved it. They saved every penny that they could. I mean. they were broke, they were debt-phobic, they did as much as they could. It was very different [from] my parents, so it was really hard to work through that.”
At some point, Maddie realized that her dad’s approach to finance wouldn’t work for her.
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“I remember saying to Caleb about seven years ago, ‘You know what’s weird? It’s realizing that there is no [getting] rich quick,’” she recalled. “And I knew it, but I think actually saying it out loud, it was such a weird concept.”
Maddie is the eldest daughter of Kody Brown and his second wife, Janelle Brown. Kody and Janelle, both 55, also share sons Logan, 30, Hunter, 27, and Gabriel, 23, and daughter Savanah, 20. Their son Garrison died by suicide in March at age 27. (Kody and Janelle split in 2022 after nearly 30 years of marriage.)
Kody also shares one child with first wife Meri Brown, six children with third wife Christine Brown and five children with fourth wife Robyn Brown. Christine, 52, split from Kody in 2021, while Meri, 53, confirmed her separation from Kody in early 2023.
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In the aftermath of Kody and Janelle’s split, Maddie admitted that she has “no contact” with some of her family members, including Kody.
“It’s because of stuff that has happened,” she said on a November episode of her podcast. She also claimed that her father “doesn’t have any respect for boundaries, and you have to play by his rules, and I just don’t care to do that.”
