'Sister Wives': Why Meri Brown insisted on televising her breakup with ex Kody

After over two decades of plural marriage, Meri and Kody Brown announced their decision to permanently terminate their marriage in January 2023.

In a new “Sister Wives: One on One” special that aired Dec. 3, Meri Brown went into the making of that decision. She said it was a direct response to Kody Brown’s actions during last season’s “Sister Wives: One on One,” when he declared, “I don’t really consider myself married to Meri. If she wanted to move on and marry another, she wouldn’t get an argument with me.”

Meri Brown said she was taken aback by his remarks — since it was a direct contradiction to the plan they had put together as a couple. By then, she told host Sukanya Krishnan, the two were broken up, but not publicly.

“Kody and I had been out on a drive on our anniversary. That’s when he and I had our very first conversation where he told me, ‘I’m not going to be in a marriage with you. This is never going to move forward,’” Meri said on the special.

Kody Brown said he didn’t want to share the decision publicly. “He’s like, ‘No, I don’t want to. I just, I don’t want to. I don’t need that kind of criticism,’” she said.

Meri said as time went on, he didn’t want to address it publicly, but she did. “I didn’t think that was fair. I felt like it was something that needed to be documented,” she said.

That’s what made his declaration at the January 2023 special all the more surprising, Meri Brown said. Krishann expressed concern that her interview might have been the last straw for Meri Brown.

“I didn’t want that to be a deal breaker for you guys,” Krishnan said.

“No thank you, I appreciate that. And honestly, it wasn’t even the conversation that he had with you. It was scenes that I had just seen that we showed right here that day,” the reality star said.

Following hat conversation, Meri Brown said she insisted on showing her breakup with Kody Brown in Season 18.

“I was owed that. I was owed him having that conversation with me publicly instead of seeing it after the fact,” she told host Sukanya Krishnan in the Dec. 3 special.

“My voice will be heard. I will no longer be silent,” she said.

During the same special, Meri Brown also told a story about a hurtful moment in her marriage to Kody Brown. According to Meri Brown, he melted down the wedding ring they shared.

"That was a symbol that was a sign of our marriage and our commitment, and he melted it down. Who’s to say that he didn’t just melt down our whole relationship in that moment? Symbolically, that’s what he did to me," she said.

The moment inspired feelings of loneliness, she said, which were a precursor to the catfishing incident that led to the deterioration of their marriage. The reality star had an online relationship with someone who she thought was a man in 2015. The person later turned out to be a woman impersonating a man, she confirmed to People in a statement in 2015.

Meri Brown was Kody Brown’s first wife. He went on to marry three other women — Janelle, Christine and Robyn Brown — as part of his plural family and had 18 children.

In Season 18, Robyn Brown (Kody Brown’s sole remaining wife) also said his treatment of Meri Brown felt like a “dealbreaker.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com