Table of Contents
Kody Brown Rejects Advice to Reconcile with Estranged Children
Kody Brown, of Sister Wives fame, is adamantly denying that the main reason for the family estrangement of his adult children is the wrongdoings of the father.
Even though the family leader was ready to patch up things with the ex-wife Christine Brown Woolley during the December 21 episode of the TLC reality show series, he refused to give any attention to her spouse David Woolley’s opinion on the family dispute.
After Kody was apologetic to his second wife—which was revealed by her as the reason for their break-up in 2021—he said, “I never loved you and I was playing the victim, which I wasn’t.” David then softly offered some suggestions.
“It’s the kids you should start with,” the bereaved father of eight said. “You should show that part as well… The women have come to terms with it but your kids still have to be healed.”
However, Kody, who has differences with most of the children he shares with exes Christine, Meri Brown and Janelle Brown, was not willing to heal that particular wound.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(579x267:581x269)/christine-brown-family-fourth-of-july-070523-tout-0e5e9b3ffddc422992928c8e359c2bcf.jpg)
Kody Brown Declares He’s Established a Limit with His Kids and David Woolley
The father of 18, Kody Brown, made it clear in a confessional, “I have set a boundary with my kids and now, I am doing it with David and Christine as well.” He further unfolded, “My whole focus here is to apologize to Christine. Not to David. Not to anybody else.”
Kody cautioned that if he went down the path of figuring out the mess with his kids, “it would bring me back to the angry side of me.”
To Kody, the issue arises when David involves himself as “he is almost the complete opposite.”
David has been spending time with the six kids Kody has with Christine—Aspyn Thomas, Mykelti Padron, Paedon Brown, Gwendlyn Queiroz, Ysabel Brown, and Truely Brown—yet Kody claims, “He really is clueless about what is happening. He thinks he knows. He thinks he understands polygamy, but he actually has a very limited view of it.”
Kody Brown Attributes Family Rifts to the Break-ups of His Plural Marriages
Kody Brown is of the opinion that the main source of the quarrels with most of his grown up children is the break-up of his plural marriages with Meri, Janelle and Christine.
“The disintegrations of those marriages were the main cause of the problems between us, not the individuals,” said Kody, who is still married to his fourth wife Robyn Brown. “I have a bad experience with my children, they also have their wounds but it comes from something that we were all involved in, not that any of us did something wrong and hurtful.”
Anyway, he was adamant about his willingness to talk about the tough stuff: “I am willing to talk about it. I will be there. ‘Dad, you did this, you did that, you did the other.’ I am willing to be there for them.”
Kody Brown Draws Line on Kids’ Relationships as David Woolley Urges Him to Reach Out
One thing Kody Brown, his ex-wife Christine Brown Woolley, and her husband David Woolley would be able to agree on is that no one should be an intermediary between Kody and his children.
“You guys can advise my kids to communicate with me,” Kody said, “but I shouldn’t have you guys involved in my relationship with my children.”
Christine concurred and answered, “It’s your relationship with your kids.”
To David, the discussion was over with a feeling that he had said what he intended to say at least. “When he ended the conversation with me, I was like, ‘OK, I had to get this off my chest just for the sake of,'” he said. “Because I am around his kids and I do see them hurt and I’m hoping that he’ll reach out to every one of them and it’s not just on his terms. It’s on their terms, too. Believe me, it doesn’t work that way in a relationship with your kids.”
Christine Brown Wishes Her Children to Be Comfortable with Kody Again
Christine would not have minded sharing the details of her Vegas trip.
It was after this difficult conversation with Kody that the two, together with David, went to Speed Vegas to race the next afternoon. Christine expressed that what she really wants is to be able to come home and tell her children truthfully, “‘So, how was it with dad?’ And I’ll say, ‘It was a blast.’ They need to know that it’s totally okay to spend time with him.”
And if her children were to forgive their father, she explained, they won’t be simply talking it through only but “They need to enjoy the company of their dad without the necessity of sitting around and having a meal and a conversation.”
At this point, a lot of the children of Kody have already shared their opinions. Take a look at what they have said about their broken relationships.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(715x374:717x376)/christine-brown-kody-092325-4eb910f8a9884734bdf3dee4d11d0196.jpg)
Gabriel Brown Thinks It’s “Too Late” for Kody to Apologize
Finger pointing at Kody Brown for being too strict with COVID-19 measures in the early days resulted in Gabriel and Kody staying apart even after lockdowns were lifted. Gabriel thought Kody’s apology was too little, too late.
Janelle Brown believes Kody has a problem because he kept thinking his kids weren’t really loyal to him and that they didn’t follow his rules.
Gabriel said that Kody kept telling him that he owed him an apology. He added, “Finally I was like, ‘Look, unless you’re, like, really ready to have a relationship and fix things, then we’re not going to talk anymore.'” A few days later Kody texted Gabriel, “I’m thinking about what you said. I forgive you. Please forgive me.” Gabriel asked, “For what?”
Gabriel was once so close to his dad that he would even tag along on his dad’s business trips. However, he still has no idea what he is being accused of. But he commented to Janelle that “I told Dad that if he doesn’t change and he can’t take accountability, then I just won’t ever see him again. And I’m perfectly OK with that.”
Ysabel Brown Feels That She May Be Losing the Opportunity of a Close Relationship with Kody
After all, Kody Brown probably thought his love would be “multiplied,” but it is not a secret that he has been very busy with his 18 kids. It has been a heavy burden for Ysabel Brown, the daughter, especially after David Woolley and her mother, Christine Brown, got married in 2023.
“I worry,” a crying Ysabel said in a confessional during a November 2024 episode, “that my dad and the chance of having a really close relationship with my dad is slowly going away.”
She said it is not that she does not like David as a stepfather. “He is an involved father with his children, so I mean, how great would it be, right?” she said. “So I would love to have an amazing father-daughter relationship with my own father.”
Ysabel had in her mind instances when Kody was very hurtful and absent and would not even come for her surgery. She said, “My dad and I aren’t like, super-duper, super-duper, super-duper, super-duper, super-duper, super-duper close.”
Although she has often considered her mother to be both mom and dad, she refuses to write off Kody: “I mean, he’s still my dad, and I love him.”
Paedon Brown Says Kody Tried to Stop Kids from Speaking Out
Kody Brown didn’t want Paedon to say anything negative about him at all.
Paedon told Youtuber John Yates last January that his father gave him an unexpected phone call. “We kind of just talked for, like, an hour and the conversation was going really well,” he said. “I thought I might be actually getting my dad back, which would be amazing.” Later, he contacted his mother.
Paedon told the story to Christine that Kody had been trying to get the producers to stop his children from criticizing him in public by the means of, allegedly, “putting it in our contracts that we are not allowed to say anything negative about him on our platforms”.
Christine didn’t give in. “Momma said, ‘No, you are not the one to tell the children what they can and cannot say about you. If you want to regain their love you have to earn it,'” Paedon told. “I didn’t call him for a talk, I called him ‘cos I don’t really want to speak negatively about him.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2)/Christine-and-Kody-Son-Paedon-Says-Polygamy-Doesnt-Work-082523-tout-198bbc3f702149f4942e98ee0d383e9f.jpg)
Gwendlyn Queiroz on the Complex Relationship with Kody Brown
Gwendlyn Queiroz has talked openly about how hard it is for her to see Kody Brown be an incredibly loving father to his children with Robyn Brown when she doesn’t believe she had that experience herself. She mentioned in a YouTube video in February 2023 that she finds it very painful to witness him being a good father to others,” and, in fact, she says she doesn’t recall him ever celebrating simple childhood achievements such as finishing a meal or making friends.
Nevertheless, she’s been trying to have a friendly relationship. In January 2023, she said that things with Kody were “very flip-floppy,” but acknowledged, “My dad’s being nice to me now… We had our differences in the past but we’re getting better.” She even welcomed Kody and Robyn to her July 2023 wedding with Beatriz Queiroz.
However, watching Sister Wives can be quite a trigger. Gwendlyn admitted she sometimes “kind of dislikes him,” but at the same time she realizes he’s also having a hard time and she says, “He’s still my dad and he’s still nice to me.”
Mykelti Padron Urges Kody Brown to Take Responsibility for His Actions
Her past role as a mediator between her parents, Mykelti Padron now looked on “Team Kody” critically. A family Q&A in October 2024 saw her claim that the family feud is still ongoing because Kody is unwilling to admit his mistakes.
“I think if he took more accountability… maybe not all, but some—of his children would kind of come to him,” she remarked. She believes that rather than saying the kids have gone away or that they talk behind their backs, a mere apology for the errors “would go such a long way.”
Mykelti contradicted Kody’s statement about refusing to “beg” for reunion. “No matter how things are between me and my kids, I would always… keep on trying to do whatever I could to strengthen the bond,” she said. Kody’s “knife in the kidney” incident was mentioned by her as an example, she continued, “I think that’s what a parent does. Sometimes you have to accept the knife in the kidney, move on, and apologize.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(999x0:1001x2)/sister-wives-mykelti-brown-4d273b74d6d3476aa9ea0961a7712264.jpg)
Leon Brown Accuses Kody of “Lying” about Reaching Out
Leon Brown has been pretty much under the radar since the Sister Wives era. He is Meri Brown’s only son. Kody recently claimed on social media that he has contacted all his kids “multiple times” and says any estrangement comes from them “not reciprocating.” However, Leon broke their silent social media to deny what Kody said.
They wrote on Instagram Stories in Nov 2025 that it is just plain not true and that they have no idea where such stories come from when the facts are that it has been so long since Kody’s last communication with them. According to them, it was after the death of their brother Garrison in March 2024 by suicide that they last heard from Kody. “There’s this idiotic video of my father where he claims reaching out to his children,” they wrote, showing they have not got any news from Kody since Garrison’s passing.
“kody blatantly just ignored me at garrison’s funeral,” Leon wrote. “he is a liar. he is a joke of a father. that’s all.”
Madison Brush Says Reconciliation with Kody Needs “Consistency” — Not Public “Lies”
When talking about her relationship with Kody Brown, Madison “Maddie” Brush admitted the possibility of reconciliation but it wouldn’t be a matter of a simple or easy thing.
“I am very willing to reconcile and forgive and get closure,” she revealed on the Sister Wives November 30, 2025, episode after a few months of having the baby, Emilia, with Caleb Brush. However, if Kody wants to be in her life and that of the children Axel, Evie, Josephine, and Emilia together,” there has to be a recurring pattern of consistency.” Therefore, till now, she hasn’t seen that pattern.
Back in October 2025, Maddie tweeted about an internal decision she made of whether something is “worth your energy or not.” In response to a follower’s question on how she came up with the idea, she said, “When your dad is publicly lying about you, you understand it very fast.”
Her main issue, she told The Authentic Society podcast in 2024, is that Kody “does not respect any boundaries at all. You have to do his way and I just don’t want to do that.”
