Despite putting her life, family and face on reality TV for more than a decade, ‘Sister Wives’ star Meri Brown has revealed that she once found herself battling a bout of anxiety that left her “too scared” to leave her house.
The TLC star and former wife of Kody Brown opened up about this period of anxiety in a new interview with Utah’s KSL News, just weeks after the Season 21 premiere of ‘Sister Wives.’ Although the new season continues to follow the lives of Meri and her now-former sister wives Christine and Janelle, it marks the first season without Kody and his only remaining wife, Robyn.
While speaking to KSL this week, Meri acknowledged the lows that she’s experienced on-camera since ‘Sister Wives’ premiered in 2010. As viewers know, one of the most recent lows occurred in January 2023, when Meri and Kody publicly announced that they had decided to “permanently terminate” their marriage.
“People have seen me have some really dark times, people have seen me not at my best, and people have seen me really sad and struggle,” Meri told the outlet.
One of the struggles people didn’t see, however, was Meri experiencing a period of self-diagnosed agoraphobia in which the former polygamist says she was “too scared” to leave her home. (According to Mayo Clinic, agoraphobia is a type of anxiety disorder that involves “fearing and avoiding places or situations that might cause panic and feelings of being trapped, helpless or embarrassed.”)
While Meri didn’t reveal when this period of self-diagnosed agoraphobia began, she told the outlet that she’s made progress “over the past few years” to overcome her struggles.
“ … I’ve really done a lot of work on myself to come out of that,” she said, noting that most of her anxiety came from her fear of being seen online. As a way to work through the issue, Meri said she knew she needed to face her fear head-on.
“When we have experiences that are hurtful or painful or traumatic, we don’t want to go back into that space,” she explained. “We don’t want to feel that pain, and we don’t want to do it intentionally. Sometimes just facing that fear is what we need to do to get through it, and that’s just what I felt like I needed to do.”
One of the steps Meri said she took to begin conquering her agoraphobia was showing her face online when selling clothes– presumably the LuLaRoe leggings and other colorful garments she’s been shilling on social media for years. She followed up that front-facing venture in May 2024 by launching Worthy Up, an “inspirational online program.”
In addition to making progress in overcoming her extreme anxiety, Meri made a new home for herself in Parowan, Utah, in 2023. Upon leaving Flagstaff, Arizona, the 55-year-old began living in Lizzie’s Heritage Inn, the Parowan bed and breakfast she purchased back in December 2017. Meri announced in 2024 that Lizzie’s– located in a home built by her great-great grandparents in the 1870s– would be closing indefinitely to undergo renovations. At this time, it remains closed.
Though her life looks almost entirely different than it did when fans met her in 2010, Meri insists that she “absolutely” doesn’t regret “living [her] life the way that [she] did.”
“I don’t regret marrying my ex when I was 19 years old and having the life and the family that I did,” Meri said. “I even don’t regret staying in my marriage as long as I did because it taught me so many things about myself.
“Doing the show completely opened up my life and our whole family into a world that we wouldn’t have known otherwise because the polygamist community is very closed and private and hidden,” she added.
As for the future, Meri said she doesn’t know for certain that she’ll remain in Parowan, but for now, she’s “just enjoying being here and seeing what else happens.”
New episodes of ‘Sister Wives’ air Sundays on TLC.
RELATED STORY: ‘Sister Wives’ Star Janelle Brown Says “It Was a Burden to Stay Married” to Ex-Husband Kody: “[It] Was So Much Work”
(Photos: TLC; Instagram)
