Christine Brown is no longer married to Kody Brown, but she confirmed on Sister Wives that they are still related — by blood!
“I knew growing up that I would have to marry a convert because I was literally related to everybody in the church,” Christine, 53, explained to her husband, David Woolley, during the Sunday, December 28, episode of the TLC series.
She then revealed, “I did marry a convert, but I was still related to him too. Yeah, I’m related to Kody.”
Christine, who grew up in a polygamist household, noted she is a distant cousin of Kody, to whom she was spiritually married from 1994 to 2021.
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“Third cousins once removed is fully legal. Fully,” she said with a laugh. “Polygamy is not legal. I’m third cousins once removed from Kody.”
David, 61, was speechless, only muttering a “wow” after hearing his wife’s familial relation to her ex-husband.
Christine’s former sister wife — and still close friend/family member — Janelle Brown, however, said it was a running joke in their household that Kody and Christine were family before they tied the knot.
“There was always this joke about [how] they were cousins, but they are so distantly related it’s ridiculous,” Janelle, 56, told the cameras. “I think in polygamist families, this kind of stuff happens all the time.”
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Janelle clarified, “It wasn’t the kind of relationship where, like, you saw each other at the family reunion — like, it was a very distant relationship. But they would always joke about being cousins. It just is a small community.”
Janelle knows firsthand how small the world of polygamy can be due to her own familial connections.
Prior to marrying Kody in 1993, Janelle was married to Meri Brown’s brother, Adam Barber, for two years. (Meri, 54, was Kody’s first wife, whom he wed in 1990. The couple confirmed their split in January 2023.)
“I think we might have lived together physically, actually lived together for, like, six months,” Janelle said of her and Adam’s marriage during a November 2024 appearance on the “Reality Life With Kate Casey” podcast, teasing it “qualifies” as a “starter marriage.”
Janelle’s family crossovers didn’t stop there, as her late mother, Sheryl Usher, was spiritually married to Kody’s late father, Winn Brown, after meeting through the couple.
“My mom came to save me from the polygamists because no daughter of hers was going to marry some into some crazy cult,” Janelle recalled on a November episode of Sister Wives. “And she ended up marrying Kody’s dad.”
Sheryl and Winn tied the knot in 1992, one year before Janelle became Kody’s second wife. Sheryl and Winn remained in a plural marriage until his death in 2013. Janelle, meanwhile, confirmed her separation from Kody in December 2022.
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While Christine’s connection to Kody comes as a surprise to some, it wasn’t the only focus of this week’s episode. Kody finally made his way to Cedar City, Utah, to meet up with Meri and finish his self-described ex-wives apology tour.
The conversation was rocky at best, with Meri and Kody getting into more than one argument during their time together. While Meri took issue with Kody bringing up her friends’ allegedly talking badly about him, he tried to refocus the attention on his apology.
“Listen, [an] apology is so needed here because this is still so toxic. And I apologize for that,” Kody told Meri at one point, referring to their constant bickering.
Meri bluntly asked, “Do you apologize that you are toxic to me, or are you just being general?” to which Kody replied, “Yes, I apologize that I am toxic to you, Meri, or was toxic to you.”
As Kody continued to use the word “apologize,” it ate away at his former first wife.
“You got to stop with the ‘apologize’ word. The more you use it, the more it feels insincere,” Meri shared, noting it “doesn’t trigger” her but it “validates that it doesn’t feel like this is a sincere conversation.”
Meri explained, “Your use of the word ‘apologize’ feels very extreme and very forced to me.”
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Kody confessed, “I’m actually uncomfortable, Meri. I triggered the minute we got together. I apologize for that.”
Despite a lot of back-and-forth between the pair, they ended the conversation with a hug — but very different feelings about what had transpired.
“From here out, I hope the swords are down. If we can move forward in the future, just making sure that we are very kind, we might be able to remain in good places with each other,” Kody told the cameras.
Meri, meanwhile, revealed, “I’m not sure at this point, you know, what this all means. There’s been a lot throughout this whole divorce process, throughout the property process, things that I’ve discovered since then. But it doesn’t affect me. I’m not listening to what he says.”
Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.
