Trigger Warning: This story contains mentions of child molestation.
Sister Wives star Mykelti Brown recently credited her dad’s (now only) wife Robyn Brown for helping her open up about a traumatic incident from her childhood and ultimately helping to dismantle the Brown Family’s strict “no tattle-telling” policy; however; Mykelti claims that Robyn’s tendency to insert herself into certain family situations didn’t always go over as well with the rest of the Brown Family kids.
As The Ashley told you last week, during an interview on the Cults to Consciousness podcast, Mykelti– who is the daughter of Kody and ex-wife Christine Brown– revealed publicly for the first time that she was molested by a neighbor kid as a child. While sharing the traumatic memory, the married mom of three explained that, because of the Brown Family’s stance on tattle-telling at the time, she was punished when she told her parents what had happened.
Mykelti claimed that once Robyn joined the family, she create a safe space for Mykelti to open up about the incident and she even explained to Kody that he (and his other wives) had not handled the situation properly.
While Mykelti went on to state during the podcast episode that Robyn’s tendency to insert herself into situations involving Kody’s children was “validating” for her personally, she revealed that her brothers and sisters didn’t always feel the same way.
“Not all of my siblings saw it [as validating],” Mykelti said. “A lot of my siblings did not like how she would– in a sense– pry into their lives and uncover the deep, dark secrets. Not everybody liked that. Some of my siblings were so upset by it they were like, ‘Stop trying to, like, delve into my life. I feel like you’re going to use it as a weapon against me.’”
When asked if Robyn ever used the information she obtained against any of Kody’s children, Mykelti replied, “yeah, probably.” She also said that while Robyn inserted herself into these situations partly so that she could get to know Kody’s kids better, “some of it was a manipulation tactic” and a way for Robyn to make herself look good.
“I have a hard time,” Mykelti said of her dynamic with Robyn– past and present. “I go back and forth all the time about how I feel about Robyn and everything.”
While Robyn’s efforts weren’t well-received by all of Kody’s children, Mykelti did credit her dad’s fourth wife for convincing Kody to allow the family to celebrate “Christian-centered” holidays (as well as holidays like Halloween) again, after stopping the celebrations years earlier.
“Robyn came into the family and she was kind of like, ‘Why are these holidays all stopped? Like, I don’t understand. This doesn’t make sense. What’s wrong with these holidays? They bring families together,’” Mykelti recalled, noting that when her family stopped participating in these holidays, they “didn’t replace them with anything” else.
Mykelti claimed that once Robyn spoke up about the ceased holiday celebrations, the Brown Family began celebrating Hanukkah “because [Kody] kind of had a minor Jewish obsession.”
“Instead of doing Easter we started doing Passover,” she said, adding that Robyn was instrumental in getting the family to resume Christmas celebrations, and eventually Easter.
Despite how some of her siblings may have felt about Robyn at the time, Mykelti insisted that “all of” the kids were “very happy that [they] got these holidays back.” She also acknowledged that this positive change that Robyn helped implement was something that viewers never really got to see on ‘Sister Wives.’
“What makes it into the show is that Robyn joined and suddenly Dad was OK with things,” she said. “It was because they wanted to compromise and figure out how to mend and merge families.
“ … it doesn’t show that a lot of things about Robyn coming into the family were good,” Mykelti continued. “Because, again, we got Christmas back finally. It was great. But the show doesn’t show too much about how that actually worked and how the meshing and mending of families actually happened.”
Click here to watch Mykelti’s interview on the Cults to Consciousness podcast.
(Photos: TLC; YouTube)
