‘Sister Wives’: Money Has Always Been an Issue for the Brown Family

Kody Brown’s marriages to three of his four wives might be over, but the Sister Wives stars are still entangled financially. 

In the Nov. 10 episode of the TLC reality series, Meri Brown and Janelle Brown sat down to talk about the future of the family’s troubled Coyote Pass property. Janelle said she feels the need to “protect” herself because she fears that Kody might fail to pay a note on the jointly-owned piece of land, causing them to lose the property. 

“Kody keeps telling me he doesn’t have money,” Janelle told her former sister wife as they discussed their stake in the property. Because neither woman was legally married to Kody at the time they split, Coyote Pass is the only significant asset each will take from their marriage. 

‘Sister Wives’ family’s ‘biggest struggles have been financial’

The complicated Coyote Pass situation is just the latest financial mess for the Sister Wives family. Money issues were causing tension between Kody and wives long before they started debating how to handle the large parcel of land outside of Flagstaff, where they once intended to build homes for each wife. 

In their 2012 book Becoming Sister Wives, Kody admitted that providing for his large family was often a challenge. 

“Our biggest struggles have been financial,” he wrote. “There have been lean times. It took me longer than I’d hoped to establish myself in a career, especially with wives to support.” 

“Money was really tight,” Kody’s third wife Christine Brown wrote.  

“Paying the bills was always a challenge – we never had enough money no matter how hard we worked,” Janelle recalled. 

Before his reality TV career, Kody worked in advertising sales, which he described as “a tough way to make a living.” Janelle and Meri both had jobs outside the home, while Christine was primarily a stay-at-home mom. Robyn, who joined the family in 2010, also stayed home with her kids. 

Kody Brown insisted that his was a ‘family of equals’ 

In Becoming Sister Wives, Kody insisted that when it came to finances, the Browns were “a family of equals.” 

“All of my income goes to the family,” he explained, while the wives all “contribute significantly to both their individual households and the family as a whole.”

“If another wife makes a bundle while her sister wife is looking after the kids, she will share her bounty,” he added. 

But in reality, that system didn’t always work. Initially, the Browns tried sharing a single bank account for all expenses, but that caused problems, Meri recalled, especially because she was the one actually in charge of paying the bills. 

“Janelle felt that I was controlling the finances,” Meri wrote. Eventually, each wife got her own separate bank account, which gave them more autonomy. 

Later, when Robyn joined the family and they started making money from the show, they became more “a team financially,” Kody’s fourth wife said. 

“We split all of our money evenly and help each other out,” Robyn wrote. “This has unified us and evened out any sense of financial inferiority or instability any of us may have had previously. We are all equal.”

Robyn and Kody aren’t living within their means, Gwendlyn Brown claims 

While Robyn claimed the Brown family operated as one financial unit, there have been signs for years that she might be benefiting more than the other wives. 

The family reportedly helped her pay off thousands of dollars of credit card debt she brought into the marriage. They also funded her unsuccessful jewelry business. Later, when the family moved from Las Vegas to Flagstaff, Meri and Janelle helped pay for her nearly $1 million house. Meanwhile, Janelle was living in a trailer and Meri was renting a house. 

Now Robyn is Kody’s only wife, but her financial situation is precarious, one family member says. The couple is living beyond their means, according to Kody’s daughter Gwendyn Brown. 

“I think that my dad and Robyn have a terrible habit of spending very crazy and, like, not within their means at all,” Gwendlyn said in a March 2024 YouTube video. “But also Janelle Brown and Meri Brown are kind of similar to my mom [Christine Brown] and that they’re not gonna be salty or petty and try to take money from him even though they totally deserve it because he’s been spending all of their money on whatever.”

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