‘Sister Wives’ Mykelti Brown Says Kody Instructed Family to Hide Their “Big Issues” from Robyn in 2010 To Get Her to Join the Family
Mykelti Brown says her stepmom Robyn has not always been “shy” like Kody Brown often describes her. In fact, during a recent YouTube livestream, Mykelti revealed that the Sister Wives star only became “closed off” and “shy” after spending several years with Kody and his clan— and discovering that the family she married into in 2010 had actually only been pretending to be a “happy family.”
“Robin didn’t always used to be this shy. Robyn’s ‘shyness’ that she’s been the last several years wasn’t always Robyn,” Mykelti said, adding that Robyn was not closed off when Mykelti was sent to live with her before Kody and Robyn got married in 2010. “I think a lot of the shyness has been developed because she’s been hardened by opinions and hardened by reality where like, her family that she thought she was marrying into isn’t what she thought it was.”
According to Mykelti, Kody instructed all of his kids— as well as his then-wives Meri, Janelle and Christine— to hide the very serious issues that were already happening in the family when Kody was courting Robyn during the show’s first season. This, as a result, kept Robyn in the dark regarding all the problems the family had. “I think when she first joined the family, we were told to present this beautiful front. Kind of like when we first started the show,” Mykelti said. “[We were told] we needed to put our best foot forward, and we needed to not have fights and show the world the beautifulness that is polygamy. It was the same thing when Robyn joined the family. We were told [by my dad] to show the beauty, show the privilege, show the awesomeness of our family so she would want to be part of it.”
Mykelti said the Browns did as they were told and hide their issues, but eventually, Robyn discovered that she had essentially been tricked into believing that things in the family were going well.
“I do think Robyn was shocked at how bad Dad’s relationships were with all of the wives,” Mykelti said. “When she joined [the family], it took a while for the rose-colored glasses to come off and everybody to show their true selves and real relationships,” Mykelti said. “A couple years in, that’s when she really started to notice there aren’t little problems. These are some big issues. So, no, I don’t think she was aware about the issues [in the beginning] but I think she became aware of the issues.”
As longtime ‘Sister Wives’ fans will remember, during the first few seasons of the show Meri had a strained relationship with both Janelle and Christine, and Christine was very jealous of Robyn’s relationship with Kody. In addition, Kody’s relationships with all three of his existing wives were struggling. According to Mykelti, Robyn was not made aware of any of these problems.
Still, Mykelti insisted that the Browns didn’t purposely deceive Robyn. “None of us were trying to deceive her, we were trying to welcome her. We were trying not to fight in front of her…we were trying to put our best foot forward, not deceive,” she said.
‘Sister Wives’ airs Sundays on TLC.
