Is Kody Brown Taking A Fifth Wife? New Rumors About The 'Sister Wives' Husband
Would a new wife replace Meri?
Getty Since 2010, TLC audiences have watched as the polygamist Brown family went from three wives to four, from twelve kids to eighteen, from Utah to Las Vegas to Flagstaff, Arizona and from being an anonymous family to major reality show stars.
Husband Kody Brown married fourth wife Robyn at the end of the first season of their show and the following season documented the way the family struggled to adjust to a new wife and the three kids she brought with her from a previous marriage. They eventually all settled into their new normal and the family expanded even more as Kody and Robyn welcomed two babies together in the years after they married.
Fans have always wondered if Kody would bring another wife into the family and rumors about that pop up every once in a while. In recent months, not only have there been rumors online, but some anoynmous Internet users allege to even know the name of Kody's new wife and the date she joined the family in 2019.
Is Kody Brown taking a fifth wife? Read on for all the rumors.
1. Kody Brown already has four wives.
In the first new episode of this season, Brown reminds audiences that he was raised as part of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which once practiced polygamy but now prohibits it. As he grew to adulthood, he decided he personally believed in the principle of plural marriage and left the mainstream church to join with a more fundamentalist sect of the faith.
He married his first wife Meri in 1990, and they both knew they would add other wives to the family over time. Janelle became his second wife in 1993 and Christine joined the family in 1994. It was more than 15 years later that fourth wife Robyn joined the clan.
2. Brown has said that he isn't interested in having another wife.
In an episode of Sister Wives from a few years back, the family briefly touched on the idea of fifth wife and nobody was for it. Kody flat-out said, "I am honestly not open to anyone else being in the family."
But saying he didn't want another wife never stopped the internet from speculating about the Browns' plans and whether they included a fifth wife.
Four wives is a lot of wives already.
3. There were rumors that he was courting Robyn's niece, Mindy.
The Brown family really does keep it in the family in some ways. Kody and Meri originally met Janelle when she was in a monogamist marriage to Meri's brother. That marriage didn't work out and Janelle ended up joining Kody and Meri as their second wife.
To make matters even weirder, Janelle's mother is Kody's father's second wife. That's why it should be no surprise that when Kody is looking for a new wife, he might look around close to home.
In 2016, there were rumors that he was courting Mindy Jessop, Robyn's niece and live-in nanny to Kody and Robyn's young kids. Sources at the time said Kody was looking to boost ratings for the show and also he was interested in having a younger woman in his life. Jessop quashed the rumors herself tweeting a photo of a mug that said, "Dang it feels good to be single."
Jessop said she was single.
4. His marriage to Meri is not going well.
Although Kody and Meri have been married since 1990, they only share one child. Meri was unable to conceive additional children, something that was a disappointment to her. It also meant that when their daughter Mariah left for college, Meri was an empty-nester, even as her sister wives were raising their much younger children.
She grew lonely and fell into an online affair with a person she believed to be a man named Sam. After months of communication and deepening infatuation, Meri learned that she had been catfished. The person she was talking to was actually a woman who had been scamming her.
The betrayal left her shaken and depressed, a situation not helped by the distrust the affair caused in her husband and sister wives. Since that happened in 2015, Meri and Kody have admitted that their relationship has been in trouble. They no longer share a home at all and are not intimate.
5. Who is Leah Marie Brown and did she marry Kody in 2019?
Last spring, some people perusing the Brown family's Wikipedia page noticed an addition. The list of adults in the family included someone named Leah Marie Brown, birthday September 15, 1990, and a wedding date of February 20, 2019. For those keeping score at home, that would be a fifth wife who was born several months after Kody married Meri. Leah Marie Brown would have been 28 at the time of a wedding to Kody who is 51.
The addition to the Wikipedia page disappeared soon after it was spotted and none of the Browns ever commented on it. Neither did TLC. No one ever claimed to have discovered who Leah Marie Brown is in real life, either. It's possible that it was the work of a troll messing with their Wikipedia page but, then again, it's also possible that a plural family is adding more members.
6. Is Kody Brown taking a fifth wife? And if so, would she be replacing Meri?
The new season of the show started recently and from all the teasers it appears that Kody and Meri are still having a lot of trouble in their marriage. Meri delayed her move to Flagstaff after the rest of the family so they were living apart for a while. Meri also spends time at her bed and breakfast in Utah to keep that business up and running.
In a clip fo the two of them in a therapist's office, Kody explains that they don't live like married people anymore. There have even been rumors that Meri has a boyfriend in Utah, though those are unconfirmed. Regardless, it's entirely possible that this couple may be reaching the end of their road together. If Meri is on her way out, might Kody want to invite a new wife in?
Fans will just have to keep watching to see what happens with the Brown family.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.