Kody Brown has accepted the fact that his ex-wife Christine Brown is now married to David Woolley — but he’s not ready for David to weigh in on their kids.
“Can I give you a little bit of advice? Just a little bit. Start with your kids,” David, 61, told Kody, 56, during the Sunday, December 21, episode of Sister Wives amid Kody’s apology to Christine, 53, for their past relationship issues and split.
David, who has eight kids of his own, advised Kody to focus on his and Christine’s six children, claiming his ex-wives “have moved on.”
“Your kids still need to heal and that’s the part that you need [to work on],” David alleged, noting that he “had to do it with my own kids” and they “butted heads” before coming out the other side.
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Kody was visibly annoyed by David’s comments, telling the cameras, “My whole purpose here is to apologize to Christine. Not to David, not to anybody else.” (Kody has been on an apology tour throughout this season of the TLC series, starting with ex Janelle Brown before moving onto Christine and eventually Meri Brown.)
“I’ve set a boundary with my kids and I’m setting that boundary with David and Christine,” Kody said during his confessional. “I don’t care what you think. I’m here to apologize and I don’t even want to be reminded of that because it will bring me back to an angry place.”
Kody eventually addressed David and Christine directly about his fractured relationship with his kids, telling them, “There’s an effort I’m already making and reaching out.”
The patriarch — who is the father of 18 kids total with his three ex-wives and current wife Robyn Brown — has had issues with most of his adult children since splitting from their moms.
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Christine and Kody announced their split in 2021, followed by Janelle, 56, confirming her own separation in 2022. Meri, 54, shared in early 2023 that she and Kody had parted ways as well.
“Those deteriorations happened as a party, not as an individual. Do you understand that?” Kody quipped, looking directly at David, who was sitting next to Christine.
David confessed to the cameras, “When he cut me off on it, I’m like, ‘OK, I had to say what I said just to make sure, because I am around his kids and I do see them hurt and I’m hoping that he’ll reach out to every one of them. And it’s not just on his terms. It’s on their terms, too.’”
David, who married Christine in October 2023, remained calm during the group meeting, but Kody later revealed he didn’t appreciate him chiming in.
“Any of his experience with his children and any of his advice for me is something that I’m just not interested in at this point, because it’s like he’s kind of just on the opposite side of this,” Kody told the cameras.
He claimed that David “really just doesn’t know what’s going on. He thinks he does. He thinks he understands polygamy, but he only has a small perspective on it.”
David, meanwhile, argued that he knows “a lot” about polygamy because his siblings lived it.
“I’ve been around it since basically the day I was born. And so for him to sit there and say I don’t know, he doesn’t know me,” David explained.
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Despite his issues with David, Kody vowed to continue to try and mend fences with his and Christine’s kids — but in his own way.
“My bad experience with my children and their pain comes from an experience that we were in together, not that they or I did something wrong and offensive,” Kody told David and Christine. “I’m willing to have the conversation. I’m willing to hold space. ‘Dad, you did this, you did this, you did this.’ I’m willing to hold that space.”
He noted, “You guys can advise my kids to communicate with me, but I shouldn’t have you guys involved in my relationship with my children.”
Christine completely agreed and quickly tried to end their meeting, telling the cameras there is “no gaping hole left in my heart” for Kody.
“I already did the closure. By the time I committed to David, I was done with Kody,” she explained.
Kody reflected on the conversation later in the episode, confessing, “I didn’t want to be rude with David, but I don’t know how long until I’m out of here. I don’t know how long they’re going to stay. I want Christine, I want to set her free.”
While his apology to Christine didn’t go exactly as planned, Kody agreed to meet up with her and David the next day in Las Vegas for a fun outing to try and leave things on a better note.
“I want to be able to go home from this and my kids to say, ‘How was it with dad?’ I’ll go, ‘It was awesome,’” Christine said of her choice to hang out with Kody at the racecar track. “They need to know that it’s completely fine to hang out with him. I’m hoping that today’s going to be a lot more fun than last night because this is what they need. They need to go have fun with their dad and not just sit and have a meal and have a conversation.”
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After spending time with Kody and David driving racecars in the desert, Christine confessed that her and Kody’s relationship is “fragile.” She said the meeting was “just the beginning of us getting in each other’s company again.”
Kody, for his part, told the cameras he felt hopeful that he and Christine will have “forgiveness, kindness, charity and moving on” in their relationship.
He later confided in a friend from Las Vegas that despite apologizing to his exes — with Meri next up on his list — he would “never trust them again” and he was “not interested in being their friends.”
“I trusted each one of my ex-wives with different things. I trusted certain things about Meri. I trusted certain things with Janelle. I trusted certain things with Christine,” Kody explained.
He revealed, “Trust has been murdered. We’re all guilty in that part,” adding that he needed to “forgive myself for my inability to figure that out.”
Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.
