Janelle Brown never imagined she’d be revisiting unfinished emotional business with Kody Brown—but that’s exactly what happened. By the time she officially walked away from their plural marriage in 2022, longtime Sister Wives viewers already knew the relationship had been unraveling for years.
The cracks were visible well before Season 18 aired, and Janelle’s decision to leave felt less like a shock and more like an inevitable conclusion. Or so it seemed. Now, amid Season 20 of the TLC series, Janelle has revealed a surprising moment of vulnerability involving her former husband—one that briefly made her question whether the door to their past was truly closed.
A Conversation Neither of Them Planned
According to Janelle, Kody reached out after reflecting on how their marriage ended. Carrying regrets about his behavior during their split, he traveled to North Carolina, where Janelle now lives, for a private conversation that never made it on air. At the time, Janelle didn’t expect much from the meeting. As she later told friends who were visiting her, “I was really intending to sit down, listen to him for ten minutes, and leave.” That plan didn’t hold.
The discussion stretched far beyond what she anticipated, turning into a candid exchange about the breakdown of their relationship. During that conversation, Kody offered what Janelle described as a sincere apology for his actions leading up to their separation—something she admitted was meaningful. Hearing it, she said, was “good to hear some of these things” directly from him.
The Thought That Caught Her Off Guard
Emotions have a way of resurfacing when old chapters are revisited, and Janelle was honest about the internal conflict that followed. “At some point I thought, ‘What if we worked this out?’” she confessed. She was quick to contextualize the moment, adding, “It’s just one of those thoughts, you know, you have when you sit down with an ex.”
Ultimately, the meeting didn’t reopen the relationship—but it did something else. It gave her clarity. Kody and I meeting sort of put a few of the little pieces that were missing out of the chapter of the book that’s closed, Janelle explained, framing the experience as a final punctuation mark rather than a new beginning.
Choosing Closure Over Reconciliation
With that conversation behind her, Janelle says she now feels a sense of peace she didn’t have before. “We’ve said our peace, and now it feels like it’s time to really cut that and move on.”
For fans who have watched her journey for years, the revelation adds depth to a story they thought they already understood. Janelle isn’t going back—but she’s no longer carrying unanswered questions with her either.
Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10/9c on TLC.
