The new season of Sister Wives started off with a bang last night when Kody Brown met up with ex-wife Christine, who left the polygamist family the previous season.
Christine was the first wife to leave the Brown family sect, back in late 2021. Janelle and Meri Brown separated from Kody in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Season 17 of Sister Wives ended with Christine selling her share of the family home in Flagstaff, Arizona. She departed to Utah along with the couple’s youngest daughter, Truely Brown.
In the season 18 premiere episode, named “There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch”, Kody and Christine met up in a restaurant – their first meeting since the couple had split. Unsurprisingly, their meeting was awkward, but the way their meet-up panned out was as bizarre as the Brown family can get.
In the confessional, Kody says he feels “betrayed” by Christine’s departure, especially after discovering she was “s***-talking me to the kids”, as he claims. “I kind of feel like, in my heart, I just never want to see her again, and I want to spend some time hating her.”
Meanwhile, Christine wanted to build a bridge between the two separate families and have an “amicable” divorce, using the meeting to plan how they can navigate the holidays. Christine offered to spend the days after Christmas in the lead-up to New Year’s at the Brown household, but Kody seemed concerned about COVID.
Kody’s strict concerns over COVID-19 drove a wedge between him and his former wives during the seventeenth season. In a recent interview, fellow ex-wife Janelle said Kody was “funny” about the disease, despite the fact she followed all the CDC guidelines. Moreover, Kody was upset with her for prioritizing seeing her adult children who have moved out, rather than spending time with him as her husband.
“I was married to [Kody] for 27 years, alright? Every time that man got sick, it was like the whole world revolved around his being sick,” Christine said in a confessional. Kody said that getting the condition gave him anxiety and depression, saying that the condition was “overwhelming for her.”
When Christine started giggling and tried to tell Kody about their daughter Gwendlyn’s joke about him having COVID, he quickly became angry, calling Christine “mean,” even though she didn’t even say what Gwendlyn’s joke was. Christine retorted that if he can’t have a sense of humor about catching COVID, then it was “a waste”.
“I was in the fetal position on the floor sobbing!” Kody snapped, which is a rather unorthodox way to describe having the respiratory condition. This only made Christine laugh more. Kody, however, still didn’t see the funny side of his illness — or with their divorce, for that matter.
“I’m not laughing, I’ve not been laughing about her leaving,” Kody said in the confessional. “She asked me to stop staying at her place, I wasn’t laughing. She moved my stuff into the garage, I wasn’t laughing then. She left with Truely, and she left early. I wasn’t laughing then, I’ve never been laughing about this.” he continued.
Sounds like this argument wasn’t really about COVID for Kody after all, and his feelings are still pretty raw after the break-up blindsided him.
Even after the fight, Christine continued laughing in the confessional. “My reaction is terrible today, I’m so sorry!” she giggled. “I’m not married to him anymore, it’s so freaking awesome!”