Janelle Brown has opened up about her marriage breakdown and how she felt like she was forced to pick between Kody Brown and their children.
The Sister Wives star, who shares six children with Kody, left the polygamous marriage earlier this year, following her fellow sister wives Christine Brown and Meri Brown. But tensions between herself and Kody were happening long before that, particularly in regard to their sons, Gabe and Garrison.
Tensions arose over Kody’s COVID-19 safety protocols, which included wearing masks in public, sanitizing and washing hands, and disinfecting groceries and other items. Janelle previously referred to Kody’s strict rules as the “10 billion commandments of Kody.”
“That really started to twist us, twist our relationship to the point of breaking,” Janelle told People in a recent interview. “So he started to be away more and I thought, ‘Wow, I could do this. I could be on my own, I could do this.’”
She continued, “The children were older. He was starting to have a lot of friction with the kids. He was starting to say things like, ‘Well, choose your loyalties.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I’m not going to leave my kids, sorry. I’m not going to tell my kids, ‘Move out.’ Not in the middle of a pandemic.’”
The conflict between Kody and the children pushed Janelle to her breaking point, and she felt no choice but to leave the marriage.
“I felt like I had to walk this tightrope,” she explained. “I had to choose between having my boys in my house or having Kody there. So when Kody would come, the boys would have to be out of the house. I’d have to spray everything down with Lysol and stuff because he was very afraid of getting the virus from them.”
“So yeah, it became really stressful,” she added. “And then, it slowly evolved as they started to get angrier and angrier with each other.”
Kody shares 18 children with Janelle, Meri, Christine, and Robyn Brown. He remains married to Robyn.
“It was just anger, and it was like, ‘My way or the highway. I’ve got to protect all these little kids,’ meaning Robyn’s children,” Janelle stated. “There was no give. There was no gentleness, there was no forgiveness. It was just like, ‘This is it.’ And then I really felt like I had to choose.”
Fans can watch the fallout of Janelle and Kody’s marriage breakdown on Season 18 of Sister Wives, which premiered on TLC this past Sunday, August 20.
