Sister Wives’ Janelle Brown Slams Kody For Overspending Their Family Money, Meri Lawyers Up Amid Property Dispute

It’s been more than two years since Kody and Janelle split. Now, she is sharing how the bills were split between their union and Kody’s other marriages.

“We weighed in on what bills should be paid, how we were going to pay, who got priority,” Janelle explained on the TLC series’ Jan. 26 episode.

Janelle — who handled the family’s bookkeeping — explained that things started to change over time, especially over the last few years.

“Kody would just take out funds and I don’t know what for,” said Janelle. “And the money was just being spent and lots of it.”

Janelle and Kody married in 1993, three years after he married his first wife Meri. He then went on to marry Christine Brown in 1994 and then Robyn Brown in 2010. All of his wives have since left him, except for Robyn.

“Towards the end, it was just really hard,” Janelle noted.

As for Kody’s reasoning, he explained in the episode that where the money went wasn’t always Janelle’s concern.

“I was a father to 18 and a husband to more than just Janelle. So we had a lot of places that money needed to go that weren’t always Janelle’s business,” he explained during the episode before adding that Janelle was supposed to pay certain bills.

“He loves this mantra that somehow I was the all powerful, one, with all the financial control,” she said of Kody. “I really was just the person who recorded the transactions and sent them to the CPA.”

This isn’t the first time the series’ audience has heard about the family’s financial difficulties. Janelle has opened up about the family’s struggle to pay off Coyote Pass — land the family purchased in Arizona.

Her former sister wife, Meri, has now joined forces with Janelle in seeking legal council amid the property dispute following the breakdown of their marriages.

The pair plotted a plan to help Meri hire a lawyer and get an equal share of the family’s four-lot property which is currently owned by Meri, Janelle, Kody and his only remaining wife, Robyn — but not equally.

While the 14-acre property is paid off, Janelle had said in a previous episode that if they agreed to sell it now, “Meri would get compensated for like, an acre and a half of the whole 14.”

“I felt like for quite a few years, I’ve just kind of sat back and just not wanted to ruffle feathers,” Meri said during the episode. “So I haven’t pushed the issue on many things, but I will push the issue.”

Over a Zoom call, Janelle revealed she was pleased to hear Meri had also reached out to a lawyer to ensure the property sale process begins.

“I’m glad it just makes sure it gets done fairly and in a timely manner because I think [Kody] could just drag his feet if he wanted to,” Janelle said, adding that it was a wise decision as the they are “not family anymore.”

Janelle revealed that her lawyer believed they could both get a percentage of the land because it was paid for out of the family account and they all paid for it “equally.”

However, it looks like Kody won’t be letting go of the property that easy. As Janelle has previously noted, since Kody’s name is on all the properties, “he’s the one that has to make changes in ownership.”

“We didn’t pay for Coyote Pass all equally. I paid for an entire lot all by myself, at least 92% of it,” Kody said during the episode. “The rest of the property, we all chipped in.”

Talking with producers, Meri said, “I’ve always felt like our family was supposed to be a team. Right now, I feel like there’s the Christine and Janelle team, and then there’s the Kody and Robyn team. I don’t want to be on anybody’s team.”

Both Janelle and Meri have expressed their frustrations with Kody, as the uncertainty over the plot of land the Brown family purchased back in 2018 continues to be a point of contention between them.

The family purchased the giant lot — dubbed “Coyote Pass” — in 2018 and it was meant to be a compound for Kody, his four wives and their children, with each wife getting their own home and parcel of land. But in the years since, Christine split from the plural marriage, and sold her piece of the pie to Kody and Robyn. Both Janelle and Meri were the next to leave Kody, though they still remain invested in the property.

Both Janelle and Meri have previously said they have been “completely in the dark” when it came to what was happening with the land, despite Meri sending an email to them all saying they needed to have a conversation about Coyote Pass. The lack of movement on the situation had them both reaching out to lawyers to ensure the process gets underway

Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10:00 p.m. ET on TLC.