Close call — Kody Brown’s daughter Gwendlyn Brown says the Sister Wives star was almost arrested for having multiple wives while the family was living in Utah.
Although Kody is currently living as a monogamist with Robyn Brown after Christine, Janelle, and Meri left him, the father of 18 once practiced plural marriage.
As Sister Wives viewers will remember, during Season 1, Kody and his then-four wives were living under one roof in Utah with their children.
Some close encounters with the police forced the family to relocate to Las Vegas in a state of exile since, at the time, polygamy was illegal in Utah.
According to Kody and Christine’s daughter, Gwendlyn, Kody came dangerously close to being put behind bars for his lifestyle choices.
During a recent Sister Wives recap on her YouTube channel, Gwendlyn opened up about being a child and the police coming to the family’s door, threatening to take Kody into custody.
Sister Wives star Gwendlyn Brown says police threatened to take Kody Brown to prison for being a polygamist
While answering some questions from her subscribers, Gwendlyn brought up the Browns’ friends, the Dargers, another polygamous family who lives in Utah. Gwendlyn expressed that she didn’t understand how the Dargers are still living there “comfortably.”
“Police were actually coming to our door when I was a kid and being like, ‘You have to leave. Like, we’re gonna take your dad to prison and stuff, blah, blah, blah,” Gwendlyn said of living in Utah in her younger years.
Gwendlyn pointed out that to her, Las Vegas was a “weird” choice of location for her family to move to after fleeing Utah.
“Why Las Vegas? You know, why not somewhere conservative and more Mormon, like Montana or Wyoming or something?” Gwendlyn asked, adding that logistically, it would have made more sense.
However, Gwendlyn is glad her family chose Vegas over Montana or Wyoming since it allowed her to take on her “vocal personality.”
Kody is living as a monogamist these days after Christine, Janelle, and Meri Brown left their plural marriage
After Christine, Janelle, and Meri split from Kody, he became a monogamist by default when he was left with just one wife, Robyn. Meri became Kody’s first and only legal wife in 1990, followed by Janelle in 1993, Christine in 1994, and Robyn in 2010, who became Kody’s spiritual wives since husbands can only legally have one spouse.
Then, Robyn and Kody became the only legal spouses in their polygamous union in 2014 after Meri divorced Kody, allowing him to wed Robyn and adopt her three children from her previous marriage to David Jessop.
Kody’s Mormon religious beliefs led him to take on multiple wives after he was called to the lifestyle as a young man. Mormon polygamous marriage started in 1831 with the founder of the Latter Day Saint (LDS) movement, Joseph Smith, after he reportedly had visions telling him that plural marriage should be practiced.
These days, polygamy — which is still practiced by approximately 30,000 people in the Beehive State — is no longer a felony in the state of Utah. In 2020, polygamy was decriminalized. A bill passed legislature, which means that the infraction would be similar to getting a parking ticket.
Kody has made it clear that he no longer supports plural marriage, however. During the Sister Wives Season 17 Tell All, he told host Sukanya Krishnan of polygamy, “Oh, hell yes, I question it all the time.”
Then, as Monsters and Critics previously reported, Kody told a fan in a Cameo video that he’ll “become a monogamist” during the upcoming season of Sister Wives, then told another fan that he won’t be taking on any more wives and that he and Robyn are “now basically monogamists.”
Although Kody set out to highlight to pros of plural marriage when Sister Wives debuted in 2010, viewers have watched as the show had the opposite effect over the past 17 seasons.
Sister Wives is currently on hiatus.