On Sunday’s all-new Sister Wives, Janelle called out her ex Kody and his wife Robyn for mismanaging the situation with their youngest daughter, Ariella, early in life.
Janelle Brown has a few things to get off her chest when it comes to her ex, Kody Brown.
The Sister Wives star called out her former spouse and his only remaining wife, Robyn Brown, for the way they’ve raised their youngest daughter, Ariella, 8, in their plural family.
“My kids from the very beginning knew that their dad was not going to always be there,” Janelle said of the six children she shares with Kody. “I always felt like Kody and Robyn mismanaged the situation with their children. He couldn’t be away for more than three or four days because Ari just gets so sad or whatever. I feel like that was poor parenting. Through all history of the family, the other kids did it and they’re fine. They’re well-adjusted adults.”
Kody explained that early on in Ariella’s life, he struggled with leaving her for long periods of time due to the emotional response she’d have when he’d leave.
“Ariella was melting down,” the father of 18 recalled. “She grabs my leg and won’t let me leave. And I’m like, ‘Robyn I need you to drag her off me.’ And she says, ‘She’s expressing herself. You’re gonna have to take five minutes and let her do it.’ She’s just dragging along my leg screaming, ‘Don’t leave me, Daddy! Don’t leave me.’ And I’m like, ‘Goh-lee, man, this is hard.'”
Despite her daughter’s struggles, Robyn, who shares five children with Kody, shut down the idea that she kept Kody from his other wives and children at the time.
“She loves her dad. She wants to be around her dad. Yes,” Robyn agreed of Ariella, “But did it ever stop Kody from going to another mom’s home? No, it didn’t. I wouldn’t have allowed it.”
Janelle’s comments come amid Kody’s 2021 split from Christine Brown, followed by his 2022 split from Janelle, and 2023 split from Meri Brown, with his exes now calling out the discrepancies between their past relationships with Kody and the relationship he has with his only remaining wife, Robyn.
“With Robyn there was always a very separateness,” Janelle said in a confessional. “My children were always scolded if they opened up Robyn’s fridge.”
Christine, meanwhile, who shares six children with Kody, has opened up about how Kody favoring Robyn has impacted the kids.
“My kids didn’t like going over there because they saw that Robyn and their dad were a couple and he wasn’t in our home,” Christine shared. “So they were frustrated.”
While Robyn is the only one married to Kody at this point, she’s struggled with the loss of the plural family that she entered into.
“I’m going through a lot of mourning, loss and grieving of the relationships and dealing with some of my own situational depression from it,” she expressed. “It’s just so sad and I miss family members.”
Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10:00 p.m. ET on TLC.
