Sister Wives’ Janelle Recalls 1st Marriage to Meri’s Brother: 'Didn't Take'

Janelle Brown, Meri Brown.

Sister Wives star Janelle Brown doesn’t count her brief marriage to Meri Brown’s brother, Adam Barber, as the real deal.

“It was very, very short lived,” Janelle, 55, said of her first marriage during the Tuesday, November 5, episode of the “Reality Life With Kate Casey” podcast.

Host Kate Casey joked, “Many of us have had starter marriages,” which prompted Janelle to laugh. “[It] probably really qualifies as [that],” Janelle replied, adding, “I think we might have lived together physically, actually lived together for, like, six months.”

Looking back, Janelle said the marriage “just didn’t take.”

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Janelle was married to Barber for two years before they divorced in 1990. That same year, Meri, 53, wed Kody Brown, becoming his first wife.

While Janelle was no longer married to Meri’s brother, she did remain friends with her former sister-in-law and Kody, 55, after first crossing paths at Meri’s house prior to her divorce. (Barber died in October 2023 after battling cancer. He was 54.)

“I was not at Meri’s house all the time. I mean, I was there occasionally,” Janelle recalled. “I just happened to be there one time when Kody came. And I already was intrigued with the faith.”

The TLC personality remembered thinking that polygamy “represented something a little more dynamic or something more robust than the faith I had.”

Janelle Brown.

Janelle explained, “When I met Kody just in passing, Meri introduced us. I go, ‘Oh,’ I had sort of a feeling. Like, ‘Oh there you are.’”

Kody and Janelle’s connection didn’t happen overnight. In fact, Janelle said she had different suitors after her first marriage — some of whom met Meri and Kody.

“I knew them as friends. I had other relationships and boyfriends. Sometimes we did double date,” Janelle shared. “They were always my token polygamist friends. I was 20. It felt cool to have unique friends.”

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Janelle noted that Kody wasn’t the one who sought her out for a romantic relationship, but her pull to the religion did inspire their eventual union. “I started to investigate the faith. Meri’s mother was a really great resource for me,” she continued. “I pretty much made the decision to join the faith.”

After a few years of friendship, Janelle married Kody in 1993, becoming his second wife. The pair eventually welcomed six children. (Janelle and Kody’s son Garrison died in May at the age of 25.)

The union was “weird” at first for Meri, who revealed during a June appearance on the “Miss Understood With Rachel Uchitel” podcast that her and Janelle’s hometown wasn’t “that small” so she didn’t expect her then ex-sister-in-law to move on with her husband.

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“It took a minute for me to get my head wrapped around it,” Meri said of Janelle’s marriage to Kody. “The whole thing was interesting. There was emotions. Let’s just say, there was emotions.”

The polygamist family continued to expand in the years that followed, adding Christine Brown in 1994. Robyn Brown began dating Kody in 2010. Four years later, Kody divorced Meri and legally married Robyn, adopting her three children from a prior marriage.

Meri remained in a spiritual union with Kody for nearly another decade before their family began to shatter. Christine, 52, announced her split from Kody in November 2021 after more than 25 years together.

Janelle followed suit the following year, revealing in December 2022 that she and Kody had been separated for months. Meri went public with her split from Kody in January 2023.