Meri Brown – Who Is The Former Sister Wives Star?
Meri Brown was the star of TLC's Sister Wives where she and three other women were married to Kody Brown.
Meri Brown is one-fourth of the wives that were previously “married” to Kody Brown. Together, they were the stars of the long-running TLC reality show, Sister Wives, a series that followed Kody, his wives, and their 19 children. Seeing as how Meri Brown was the first to legally marry Kody Brown, we are going to take a look at their lives together, what part the three other women play in Meri’s life today, and where she is heading after her acrimonious split from Kody Brown.
MERI BROWN IS 52 YEARS OLD AND WAS BORN TO A POLYGAMIST FATHER
Not much is known about Meri Brown’s life before she became a “celebrity” on Sister Wives. What is known is that Meri Brown (née Barber) was born on January 16, 1971, in Alameda, California.
She was born to parents, Bill and Bonnie Barber, into a family that would truly shape her adulthood. Her father was a polygamist and had five wives. In total, Meri Brown has 25 siblings.
MERI MARRIED KODY IN 1990
Meri Barber became Meri Brown in 1990 when the couple was legally married. Meri first met Kody in 1989, when Meri was barely 18 years old. They were introduced to each other by one of Kody’s sisters and immediately hit it off.
Things became more serious for the couple when, on the day before Christmas in 1989, Kody proposed to Meri. They officially became man and wife on April 21, 1990. This was only the beginning of a very complicated relationship the two would endure.
MERI BROWN WANTED 8 CHILDREN WITH KODY BUT HAD ONE – AUDREY
When Meri Brown married Kody, she was intent on having at least eight children with him. Unfortunately, that would never be the case. Throughout their entire relationship, Meri was only able to conceive twice. The first time was in 1994 when Meri became pregnant with her daughter. The second time came 13 years later in 2007 which sadly ended with Meri having a miscarriage.
It wasn’t for not trying. Finally, when Meri was 41 years old, they decided to look into IVF as a way to get Meri pregnant. While they were doing this, one of the other Sister Wives, Robyn, offered to be a surrogate for Meri. Eventually, Meri declined the offer and finally came to terms that she would only have one biological child.
Meri Brown had her daughter, Mariah Brown, in 1994. In 2013, after graduating high school, Mariah attended Westminster College, graduating in 2017. It was while Mariah was in college that she realized she was attracted to women.
During an episode of Sister Wives, Mariah came out to Meri Brown and the rest of the family. At first, Meri had a difficult time adjusting to the news her daughter was a lesbian. Eventually, Meri came to terms with her daughter’s life choices and has since supported her daughter.
Since 2017, Mariah has been involved with Audrey Kriss. The couple got engaged on January 16, 2019, and in December 2021, Audrey Kriss came out as transgender. The couple still lives happily together.
SISTER WIVES STARTED ON TLC IN 2010
Believe it or not, TLC has been running the reality series, Sister Wives, since 2010. When the show first aired, it was at a time when our American pop culture was keen on polygamy and multiple marriages. Television shows such as Big Love, starring Bill Paxton as polygamist Bill Henrickson and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloë Sevigny, and Ginnifer Goodwin playing his wives, were quite popular.
When the first season of Sister Wives premiered in 2010, Meri Brown had already been legally married to Kody Brown for 20 years. Before that, though, Kody Brown had taken on two more wives. Since polygamous marriage is not legally recognized in the United States, Kody Brown’s marriages after Meri Brown were “spiritual” in nature, so as to avoid any legal ramifications.
While taking on Meri Brown legally in 1990, Kody Brown then went on to “marry” Janelle Brown in 1993, then followed that up with his “marriage” to Christine Brown in 1994. For 16 years, Kody remained with the three women, raising their children together as one big family. Of the four Brown wives, Janelle Brown was the only one who had not grown up in a polygamist family.
In 2010, when the series first picks up, Kody Brown decided he wanted to have one more wife, so he is courting Robyn Sullivan to become his fourth wife. The following six seasons detail life and all its ups and downs with Meri Brown, her Sister Wives, their children, and the relationship they all have with Kody.
MERI BROWN DIVORCED KODY IN 2014
Life for Meri Brown with Kody was never smooth sailing. Meri even recently acknowledged that “I am not for everyone,” and even though she recognized that, she made a tough decision in 2014. It was then that Meri chose to legally divorce Kody, so he could legally marry Robyn and adopt her three children.
ALL OF THE SISTER WIVES HAVE DIVORCED KODY
Meri Brown was not the first, but she was the last. It was Christine Brown who took the first step of getting out of the polygamist marriage when, in November 2021, she took to her social media to announce that she split with Kody Brown. “Kody and I have grown apart and I have made the difficult decision to leave,” she wrote. “We will continue to be a strong presence in each other’s lives as we parent our beautiful children and support our wonderful family.”
It took almost a year after Christine left that Janelle decided that she too had had enough of Kody. She split and days later, Meri Brown, who had the longest relationship with Kody at 32 years, declared that she also had left Kody. Everything came to a head when Meri saw for the first time Kody’s reaction to the two of them living apart.
“I don’t really consider myself married to Meri,” Kody starts during his interview on Sister Wives: One on One that aired on TLC on December 8, 2022. “If she wanted to move on and marry another, she wouldn’t get an argument with me.”
This was the first time Meri Brown was seeing and hearing Kody make this announcement, and she was definitely floored by it. “It just doesn’t make sense to me that he would be so frustrated with Christine [Brown] and be like, ‘She just made this decision,’” Meri explains on Sister Wives: One on One.
“We didn’t consult, we didn’t talk, she just made the decision and then he says, ‘No, I don’t consider myself married to Meri.’ Like, he just made the decision. I’ve never heard him say that to me.” As it stands right now, Meri Brown, Christine, and Janelle are no longer the spiritual wives of Kody, leaving Robyn as the only (and legal) wife to Kody.
MERI BROWN IS ON INSTAGRAM
Since splitting from Kody Brown both legally and now spiritually, Meri Brown has kept herself busy. She is the proud owner of Lizzie’s Heritage Inn as well as an online clothing seller of LuLaRoe. On top of that, Meri has been giving major hints on her Instagram, where she is very active, that perhaps there is a tell-all book in her future.
As you can see in the photo, Meri has a book covering half of her face with a caption that starts, “Not all is always as it seems.” Meri then goes on to explain that oftentimes, people accept a certain story as “truth” because it is what they “want to believe.” She says everyone has their own truths and their own experiences. She ends with, “Remember, no matter how flat the pancake is, it always has two sides.”
