Meri Brown was 19 years old when she married Kody Brown in 1990. He was 21. Thirty-three years later, Kody has one wife left — and the other three are burning their wedding rings on national television.
But the collapse did not happen in a single moment. It happened in dates — a wedding here, a divorce there, an announcement, an email — spread across three decades. With Season 21 airing its “Therapy by Fire” episode on Sunday, November 8, here is the timeline of how four wives became one.
1990–2010: One Wife Becomes Four
Kody and Meri married legally in 1990. Janelle joined the family in a spiritual marriage in 1993, and Christine followed in 1994. Kody would eventually have 18 children across his marriages. Then came 2010: Kody spiritually married Robyn Brown, who arrived with three children. Four wives, one husband — and a television show that premiered that same year.
2014: The Paperwork That Broke the Foundation
If one date marks the beginning of the end, it is 2014. That year, Meri agreed to legally divorce Kody so he could legally marry Robyn and adopt her three children. Meri believed the paperwork would change nothing. On the November 1 episode of Season 21, Christine told Meri she believes the 2014 legal divorce was the “real” end of their relationship — and that the idea felt “kind of planted” by Kody and Robyn. Nine years passed between that divorce and Meri finally announcing the marriage was over.
November 2021: Christine Walks Out First
Christine was the first to leave — and the only one who seems to have enjoyed it. In November 2021, after 25 years and six children with Kody, she announced the separation on social media. On the November 1 episode, she told Meri, “I loved my leaving process.” She meant it: in October 2023 she married David Woolley in Utah. Her exit showed the other wives that leaving was survivable — even happy.
December 2022 – January 2023: The Last Two Dominoes
Janelle went next. In December 2022, after nearly 30 years and six children with Kody, she confirmed their separation. She has since called staying in the marriage “a burden.” Meri was last. In January 2023, she and Kody confirmed the end of their spiritual marriage in a joint statement, admitting they had spent “more than a decade” trying to fix problems that would not fix. In fourteen months, Kody went from three wives to one.
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The years since have redrawn the family completely. Janelle introduced her boyfriend Pete on Instagram in August 2026, and Meri has opened up about dating again. The family also endured its darkest loss when Garrison Brown, Janelle and Kody’s son, died in March 2024 at 25.
And then came the ending no one saw coming. On September 14, 2026, TLC’s Season 21 trailer announced that Kody and Robyn would not be returning after 16 years of filming. Janelle learned the news by email. “I actually got an email that they weren’t coming back, and I’m like, ‘Oh, wow. Okay,'” she told PEOPLE. “I might have [deleted it]. I didn’t care.” She also estimated that Kody is “alienated from 90 to 95 percent” of his children — her assessment, not a verified count.
Season 21 premiered on October 4, 2026, without Kody or Robyn. On Sunday night, the three women who left gather around a fire and burn the rings. So when did it actually end? Was the point of no return the day Meri signed the divorce papers in 2014, the day Christine walked out in November 2021 — or the day Janelle opened an email and realized she simply did not care anymore? Pick your date, and tell us why.
