How Christine and Janelle Brown realized ‘Sister Wives’ could outlast their marriage: ‘The new "us" is Janelle and I’

“Sister Wives” stars Janelle and Christine Brown aren’t technically sisters, but they might as well be. At a New York hotel in November, the duo were mistaken as siblings by the clerk at the hotel while handling their luggage. With their blond hair and shared last name, it’s easy to see why.

Speaking to TODAY.com across a conference table in 30 Rock two days before Thanksgiving, Janelle Brown says she didn’t bother to correct the worker when he asked. “I’m like, yeah,” she says. “Because it is like sisters.”

In fact, Janelle says, the bond of being "sister wives" might even be deeper than being actually related. “My sister and I are very close, but we’ve had different life trajectories. With Christine? We didn’t plan it, but we’ve had such a similar life. We’ve done everything together,” she says.  

By everything, Janelle means, in part: Marrying the same man, Kody Brown; having six kids each with that man; being part of a plural family that included four wives and a total of 18 children; and, recently, deciding to walk away from their marriages, each for reasons of their own. (Kody’s marriage to Meri Brown, his first wife, has also ended.) Christine announced she was leaving in November 2021; Janelle, in December 2022.

Oh, and one more small thing they've shared: Starring in the long-running phenomenon of a TLC show “Sister Wives,” which documented the entire journey, which hit a ratings high this year, 18 seasons in. The Season 18 premiere drew in 4 million viewers.

The show was initially the Brown family’s pitch to show America what a functioning, fundamentalist Mormon, polygamist family could look like — and how it might even look like yours. 

“Even though our marriage arrangement was weird, we had normal relationships, normal life struggles ... compounded by all the layers of relationships. People were intrigued that we seemed normal, even though we lived in an unusual, religious lifestyle,” Janelle Brown says. Christine backs her up: “People are like: ‘I saw myself in you.’” 

Recent seasons have focused on what Kody calls the family's "civil war," as the family units — and both generations of Browns — fracture, fight and come together again.

Janelle and Christine still share screen time with their ex and two former sister wives, Robyn and Meri Brown, and stress in the interview that co-parenting peacefully is the priority. "I hope I can help (my kids) be closer to him," Christine says, alluding to some of her children's feelings of distance from their father.

Today, as they televise their simultaneous divorces, Janelle hopes they can continue to relate to audiences, even if they remain in unique positions. 

“I’m hoping it’s not some sort of freak show thing. I’m hoping we can normalize these conversations,” she says. “I grew up in a household where nobody just said what they thought. I think it’s been healthy, actually, to have such an open conversation about things.”

Divorcing, but keeping the 'village'

They might not have predicted the ending, but Christine and Janelle Brown didn't end up here by accident: The two deliberately sought out polygamy. “This is the path we chose,” Janelle says. 

Along with the other members of their plural marriage, Christine and Janelle describe how they came to this arrangement in the jointly written book “Becoming Sister Wives,” published in 2012. Janelle was briefly married to Meri’s brother, Adam Berber, and met Kody at that time. Christine and Kody met in 1990 at a church youth group. 

For both Christine and Janelle, the appeal of polygamy wasn’t necessarily romantic love, but the “whole big family experience,” Christine says. 

For Janelle and Christine, the setup — especially while raising kids — was “awesome.” They were able to co-parent, a setup that continues to this day as the family shares holidays. “A village is awesome, right? My kids are so attached to Christine,” Janelle says.  

Season One, which aired in 2010, started with the change that contributed to the family’s eventual unraveling: The introduction of Robyn Brown, Kody’s fourth and final wife. 13 years later, the show is still airing — and dealing with the fallout of what happens when the patriarch of a polygamist family finds his soulmate.

During a recent “Sister Wives: One on One,” Kody Brown said Robyn was the first woman he had fallen in love with; he was so bowled over by the feeling, he cried for a week. Later, his other wives, including Christine, believed he favored Robyn over them. 

Trouble intensified, Christine says, when the family moved to Flagstaff, Arizona from Nevada and “stopped working as a unit,” and instead became “separate groups and separate families,” Christine says. 

Today, Kody Brown is in a monogamous relationship with Robyn Brown, who is adjusting to the loss of her dream life: Sister wives.

That life, it seems, is one Christine and Janelle have managed to continue experiencing. While the two live in different states, they share their kids. For Christmas, half of Christine’s kids are flying out to spend the holidays with Janelle t her daughter Maddie Brown Brush’s house. “I’m having FOMO,” Christine says.  

The revelation that their sister wife-dom could outlast Kody came during a trip with some of their kids. “We realized, ‘Oh. The new ‘us’ is Janelle and I. And we’re going to keep raising our kids together, because we want to. We don’t have to do anything. We just love each other, honestly,” Christine says. “She helps me balance me. She just gets me. She understands me.”

Kody, on the show, is often mystified by Janelle and Christine’s friendship, saying they weren’t this close when the marriage began. Janelle explains they’re close because the marriage is over.

“The last remaining friction point is gone: The fact that we were married to Kody. Now it’s just all the good stuff. We’ve chosen to parent our kids together,” she says.

From sister wife to regular wife: What's next for Christine and Janelle

Janelle and Christine say they’re not worrying about favorites anymore. They’re focused on their future. Christine recently married David Woolley, a Utah-based, motorcycl-riding owner of a drywall business, after their whirlwind romance played out in exuberant instagram posts in 2023. David calls Christine his "queen," and said he feels like he's the "luckiest guy" to know her. (Janelle, on her end, says David is "awesome," and the kind of guy who "never meets a stranger.")

Janelle, who says she was “blamed for being too independent” in her marriage to Kody Brown, is now figuring out what real independence looks like.  

In the time since Christine and Kody announced their split in November 2021, and Janelle followed in turn, the two have become fan favorites and emblems for reinvention in middle age. 

“Life has been an unexpected journey. I didn’t expect to be here, reinventing myself at 50. I’m honored that people still want to see what I’m doing,” Janelle says. “Because I’m going to pull it off. I’m going to reinvent myself in a very big way. I hope that is inspiring to people.”

Christine says reinvention has taken on the shape of her “romantic adventure.” She and Woolley — who is making his “Sister Wives” debut in December — met on a dating app, and married months later. “I finally get to have the romantic life I wanted,” she says. “I feel like we get to experience everything now. It’s a new era of life where there are so many possibilities. I don’t want to wait anymore. I want to grab it with both hands and take life, go fast and explore.”

Before she could open herself up to a relationship, Christine says she had to redefine and reclaim one adjective: selfish. 

“I’ve lived my life enough for other people. I just want to live my life for now, and my life for me. It’s OK to do things for yourself. Selfish was a big word I had to process. Is it selfish to want to live your own life? It’s not. You’ve got to be able to choose you,” she says. 

But she took Janelle with her. On their second date, Christine says she told David the facts of her path, including her package deal. “I told David straight: Janelle is coming with me. Everything that I do, I’m choosing her too,” she says. 

Like Christine, Janelle is embracing her “selfish” era, but it doesn’t involve romance (although she’d be “open to it,” she’s “not looking.”) 

As part of a polygamist family, her life was “decided by committee.” She also was constrained by responsibilities of a mom of six. Janelle teases that this is her chance to “do something she’s always wanted to do, for as long as I can remember.” 

Christine and Janelle feel they’re on the cusp of something: Their full potential. “For once, I get to live for me,” Janelle says. “I get to do all those things I knew I was capable of. Now I get to do me and all the potential that’s there.”

Now that they’re not wives, they can be sisters — though each of the women confirms they aren’t in touch with their other “Sister Wives.” Janelle says she and Meri are “cordial” and she wishes her well, but “there’s not any overlap of our lives now.

“I’m going to surround myself with people that I trust and want to spend time with,” Christine says. 

And neither of these Browns have regrets about their journey and what got them here. “Who I am today is because I was a sister wife to Janelle,” Christine says. 

And to the many people who have been following their story for years — who have aged as they have and whose family units have shifted and changed, too — Janelle says she and Christine have a message:  

“You are stronger than you think. You are braver than you think. And you know what? You can figure it all out."

They would know.