When TLC's Sister Wives started airing, Kody Brown had three wives -- one legal and two spiritual -- and he was in the process of courting the woman who would eventually become his only wife, Robyn.
But if the Brown family had never let the TLC cameras into their lives, would their plural marriage still be in tact? Janelle Brown, the second of Kody Brown's wives to leave their marriage, made an appearance on the Reality Life With Kate Casey podcast and she answered that question.
"Do you think if you had not been part of a television show, that you would all still be in the same family unit?" Kate Casey asked on the November 5 episode of the podcast and Janelle Brown admitted that this question isn't an easy one to answer -- especially two years after leaving their marriage and moving on with her own life without Kody.
According to Janelle, it's "hard to know" what would have happened to her family without the reality series. She told the podcast host, "Everybody changes. We could have gotten to the same point. But I’m really glad, now, ‘cause we do have a lot of opportunities now."
According to Janelle, it's possible that their marriage would have reached a point where she and Kody's other wives would have made the decision to leave him regardless of whether or not they had been given a show on TLC, but she's glad that she did do the show because it means that she's been given opportunities she wouldn't have gotten without it.
On the show, Janelle has had a similarly matter-of-fact view of the loss of their relationship. In one episode of the January 2023 Sister Wives: One-On-One special, she said, "I've kind of mourned that that part of our life is gone."