Sister Wives stars Kody Brown and his second wife Janelle Brown‘s relationship timeline is full of twists, turns and surprises.
Years before they married, Janelle’s mom, Sheryl Brown, and Kody’s dad, William Winn Brown, tied the knot and were married until he died in 2013 at the age of 78, making Kody and Janelle step-siblings. Sheryl later died in 2020.
In a 2013 episode of the TLC series, Janelle explained about their complex family tree, “Before Kody and I were really courting, I was actually friends with his family. My mom was worried I was getting sucked into some polygamous cult. But she ended up meeting Kody’s dad, and they ended up falling in love and getting married before Kody and I started courting.”
And before becoming romantically involved, Janelle was married to fellow sister wife Meri Brown‘s brother, Adam Clark Barber.
In her bio for the show, Janelle says, “I met Kody in the fall of 1989, even though he may not remember it. When he walked into the room I looked at him and had that feeling of remembering something I had forgotten. It was a singular experience.”
Despite her “singular experience,” Janelle reportedly didn’t split from Adam until June 1990 after two years of marriage. She added in her bio that she “had known Meri’s family for several years before the night I met Kody.”
Kody wrote of the time period following Janelle’s split from in his 2012 autobiography, Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage, writing, “We both knew that Janelle had endured a rough period during her short-lived marriage, and we wanted to make sure that she remained close with Meri’s family despite the divorce. We, as well as Meri’s parents, were looking out for Janelle purely because we cared about her. There was never any thought in my mind, or in Meri’s, of Janelle becoming a wife.”
The pair ended up marrying in 2003 and welcomed six children together: Logan, Maddie, Hunter, Garrison, Gabriel and Savanah.
Scroll through the photos to go through their entire relationship timeline over the years of their marriage.