During the latest episode of Sister Wives, Kody Brown opened up about his fractured relationships with his adult children, specifically his fifth-eldest child, Mykelti, whom he had once had a (semi) close relationship with.
Sunday’s episode highlighted Mykelti’s move to North Carolina with her husband, Tony Padron, to advance his career in competitive chess playing. During past seasons of the show, Mykelti had attempted to keep in contact with Kody and his wife Robyn, but the move marked the end of her pursuit to try to keep Kody in her life, as it became very clear that her frizzy-haired father was not willing to devote much effort or time to keeping up their relationship.
While in the midst of packing up her home with her mom, Mykelti revealed, “[I] told [Dad] he should come up and see us before we leave, and it didn’t happen. It is what it is.”
In a confessional interview, Kody attests that he and Robyn tried to meet up with Mykelti and Tony and their kids before their big move, but conflicting schedules and miscommunication prevented them from seeing each other.
“We just were never able to make the contact,” he insisted.
Kody went on to insist that his relationships with nearly all 14 of his adult children are “strained” due to “trash talk and innuendo.”
“It has challenged trust and loyalties on all sides,” Kody added of the alleged “trash talk and innuendo.”
Kody didn’t elaborate further than that, but many other family members, including his daughter Madison, have faulted Kody for his lack of follow-through with his children he shares with his original three wives.
Madison shared in the Season 20 premiere episode that she was having a hard time coming to terms with the state of her relationship with her now-estranged father. On the other side, Kody expressed interest in wanting to reconnect and heal the hurt relationships with his children, but insisted that healing is only allowed to happen “on their terms.”
During Sunday’s episode, Mykelti’s mom Christine weighed in on Mykelti’s sadness regarding her father putting in little-to-no effort to maintain their relationship, despite Mykelti trying desperately to do so for a long time. (As ‘Sister Wives’ fans are aware, Mykelti was one of Kody’s only grown children who had any sort of relationship with him and Robyn for years, with Mykelti even requesting that Robyn be present when she gave birth to her and Tony’s twin boys in November 2022.)
“There’s a lot of hurt feelings and frustration and anger and resentment,” Christine said, adding that Mykelti’s move to North Carolina was not just for her husband’s career, but also to give her a break from the weight of trying to hold the relationships with her parents and siblings together to no avail.
“The whole thing has been sad,” Christine added. “It’s just not what Mykelti hoped it would be…Mykelti tried so hard to get the whole family back together again. She really wanted to.”
The first hint that Mykelti’s relationship with Kody and Robyn had begun to fracture came in September 2024, when Mykelti revealed on her Patreon channel that she no longer supported Robyn in the way she previously had.
“It’s true we have always been super-supportive of Robyn. Yes, lately it may seem as that has changed,” Mykelti wrote in the comment section of one of her videos. “There are things that happened during the recent funeral [for Garrison] that are the reason for that. We won’t be talking about those events.”
(As ‘Sister Wives’ fans are aware, Mykelti’s brother, Garrison died by suicide in March 2024. He was estranged from Kody at the time of his death.)
In October 2024, Mykelti opened up about how the fame from her family’s TLC series had “morphed” her father into a different person than the man who helped raise her.
“I think the show changed him a lot, because he wasn’t like this. He was a lot more like, ‘I understand, I did wrong. I would like to do better.’ That was my dad,” Mykelti said at the time. “The show’s morphed him.”
‘Sister Wives’ airs Sundays on TLC.
(Photos: TLC)
10 Responses
I wonder what happened at garrisons funeral that stopped her from talking to robyn and also you moved to NC for tonys chess oh come on lol
First it was Janelle, Christine and Meris fault that he didn’t have a relationship with his kids. Now, it’s their fault. From what I’ve seen, they are open and honest about how they feel and what they need. Kody just refuses. It’s so sad he can’t take responsibility for anything he does wrong.
He claims he fell hard for Robyn. But why does that change his relationship with his 13 other kids? The whole thing of divorcing Meri so he could marry Robyn to “adopt” her 3 kids was plain hurtful and selfish. He made a choice to dump his 13 kids in favor of his so called “shy and pretty wife”. Then he blames Meri, Janelle and Christine and the 13 kids he had with them for how it all turned out. There is no way Kody or Robyn will ever accept any blame. They have completely gotten into her kids heads and messed up their thinking. A woman in her 20’s needing permission to go to church and get baptized? Ridiculous. One child in a grave….how many more do you need to lose Kody?
Your relationship with your children is strained because it’s impossible for one man to do right by four wives simultaneously, which inevitably impacts how her children see you. They’re strained because there’s no way to have that many kids and give each one the time and attention they deserve. Finally, they’re strained because you lack the temperament to approach these built-in shortcomings with anything approaching humility or maturity.
Too busy to find the time to say good bye…yep, pretty much sums him up. I can’t imagine not having enough time to see one of my children if they were moving 2,000 miles away but then again, I love my children.
Competitive chess playing? Since when was Mykelti’s hubby into that?
He sounds lazy!
He has openly admitted he does not like to work and when he was engaged to Mykelti he told Kody and Christine to take out a second mortgage to pay for their wedding. Absolutely he is lazy and proud of it. Plus I wonder if he regularly bathes. He looks plain gross.
You’d think that losing a child would make him realize he needs to make some life adjustments towards his other children. I’ll never understand deadbeat parents.
You would think that but he has no empathy or compassion for any body but himself.