Sister Wives star Christine Brown continues to shed light on what led to her split from ex-husband Kody Brown.
Christine, 51, revealed on the Monday, December 18, episode of the “Juicy Scoop” podcast that she and Kody, 54, had a “fateful conversation about intimacy” shortly before their marriage came to an end.
“He’s like, ‘We’re not going to have an intimate marriage anymore. We’re not going to have sex,’” Christine claimed, referring to a discussion that took place in fall 2020 after their daughter Ysabel had spinal surgery.
Christine, who was in a spiritual marriage with Kody from 1994 to 2021, confessed that even before that chat they were barely sleeping together. “It was, like, five times in one year,” she said when asked how many times they had sex pre-breakup.
“There’s sex and then there’s intimacy. What we didn’t have was intimacy. The intimacy itself had been gone for years,” she recalled, adding that once Kody told her they were done having sex, she began “boxing up his stuff” and told he couldn’t sleep in her bed anymore.
The twosome, who share six children, publicly announced their divorce in November 2021. Kody split from his second wife, Janelle Brown, in December 2022 and he and Meri Brown confirmed their breakup in January. Kody is still legally married to Robyn Brown.
Scroll down for more revelations from Christine’s “Juicy Scoop” podcast appearance:
Her Mom Never Wanted Her to Be in a Plural Marriage
Christine revealed that her mother, Annie, left her own plural marriage when Christine was 19. At the time, Christine already knew Kody, but they were not in a relationship. When Christine split from her spouse, she learned her mom’s true feelings about polygamy.
“I didn’t know she wasn’t really in favor of my living polygamy until I left Kody,” Christine told listeners. “She was sad that I was marrying Kody. She supported me [though] and I never knew that she felt different.” Christine explained that polygamy was “hard” on her mom because she “felt that it wasn’t a lifestyle that honored women.”
She’s Still Unsure Why the Family Moved to Arizona
“We still don’t really know why we moved from the cul-de-sac [in Las Vegas],” Christine said, noting that “Kody started talking about how it was unsafe for our kids.” She recalled being a “team player” with the move to Flagstaff, Arizona, and hoping for a better life as a plural family.
Christine claimed, “We were very separate in the cul-de-sac. I felt that Coyote Pass was going to be a restart for us. It was really going to be uniting. We felt very broken and disjointed in Las Vegas.”
Ysabel’s Surgery Was the Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back
In September 2020, Kody and Christine’s second youngest child, Ysabel, underwent spinal surgery to help with her scoliosis. Her surgery journey played out on season 16 of the TLC series — and for Christine, she said the way Kody acted during that time cemented the end of their relationship.
“The final thing for me was Ysabel’s surgery. He said to her … ‘I can’t leave my family for that long.’ Ysabel goes, ‘I thought we were family. I thought he was my dad.’ She was like, ‘What am I?’” Christine recalled, adding that Kody chose not to leave Robyn, 45, and her kids to be by Ysabel’s bedside. “I was like, ‘Oh, we’re done.’ I can’t be married to a guy who doesn’t consider us his family.”
Christine Doesn’t Plan to ‘Release’ Robyn From Sister Wife Bond
During part 4 of season 18’s Sister Wives: 1-on-1 tell-all special, Robyn broke down into tears over being the only wife in Kody’s life. She claimed on the Sunday, December 17, episode that it felt “disrespectful to be happy with Kody” when the other unions failed. Robyn then said she would “need” an off-camera chat with her former sister wives to get permission to live monogamy.
After watching the episode, Christine said she didn’t agree with that plan. “Girl, that’s never going to happen. She wants us to go say to her off camera, ‘Your majesty, you can have him now.’ That’s never going to happen,” Christine told podcast host Heather McDonald.
Christine Thinks It Must Be ‘Hard’ to Be in Robyn’s Shoes
Now that Christine is happily married to David Woolley, whom he wed in October, she just wants everyone else in her family to find peace — even Robyn and Kody.
“She must be very, very, very sad to watch it all crumble and to feel so powerless to hold it all together. She just does not have what it takes to hold it all together. She doesn’t,” Christine said of Robyn’s inability to move forward. “And I think she just must feel like she’s thinking that she is losing something that could be so beautiful. … It just gotta be hard to be in her shoes and not be able to hold the family together. I don’t know. I don’t talk to her. I just don’t.”
