‘Sister Wives’: Gwendlyn Reveals She’s Biologically Related to Robyn’s Children

Sister Wives star Gwendlyn Brown (Christine and Kody Brown’s daughter), reveals that she is actually biologically related to her adopted siblings from Robyn Brown. This strange twist is just another layer of the strange Brown family tree.

So, what did Gwen say? Let’s take a look.

Sister Wives: Gwendlyn Brown Reveals Biological Link to Robyn Brown’s Kids

The following is the transcript from a Soap Dirt podcast. You can listen to our podcast on any major podcast platform (including Spotify):

Hey there, reality TV fans. This is Soap Dirt, and we are going to be talking about Sister Wives today. Some of the older kids of the Sister Wives clan have been coming out with accusations, allegations, and revelations, about Robyn Brown.

And the latest are from Gwendlyn Brown. But we’ve been hearing a lot from Paedon Brown. Today we’re going to talk about what Gwendlyn said about her biological Sister Wives sister and how she looks at Robyn Brown’s kids.

There’s a little bit of history here, which ties to what she’s currently saying. If you don’t know this, Kody Brown right now has one marriage. He’s a polygamist who’s down to one wife, so that makes him a monogamist.

But the rumor is that they’re shopping for another wife. We’ll see, but right now, Meri Brown, Christine Brown, and Janelle Brown have all bailed on Kody Brown for reasons that fans understand after watching the last season.

His sole wife, who’s his only legal wife is Robyn Brown. And if you know your Sister Wives‘ history or if you don’t, here’s a little lesson.

Kody Brown Ends Legal Marriage to Meri Brown so He Can Adopt Stepkids

Kody was married legally to Meri Brown, and then he spiritually married Janelle Brown and then Christine Brown. But then when Robyn came along, she had kids from her first marriage that Kody wanted to adopt. To be able to adopt them, they had to be legally married.

So, he divorced Meri Brown. And he married Robyn, who was Robyn Jessop then. Then he adopted her kids. She had three kids with her first husband, whose name is David Jessop. David Jessop’s name is important because that’s who Gwendlyn just spilled some tea about. So, Gwendlyn Brown said recently that her mother, Christine Brown, is David Jessop’s first cousin.

Now, if you know anything about Sister Wives, Mormons and polygamy, in this branch of the Mormon community, you know you’ll hear the same names repeatedly. There’s a lot of cousins and children that wind up as stepkids.

Gwendlyn Confirms Sister Wives Marriage Mess – Her Mom’s Related to Robyn’s Ex!

It can be very messy. So, Christine’s daughter, Gwendlyn just said that Christine and David, [Robyn’s first husband] are first cousins. So, what that means is that the three kids that Robyn had with David Jessop are biologically second cousins to all of Christine’s biological kids. And this gets confusing because all the kids consider themselves all related in this big family.

They consider everybody in the Sister Wives family to be brothers and sisters. And, they consider “the moms” their moms. But most of them are not biologically related, except through Kody.

So technically, Janelle’s kids are cousins to Christine’s kids, and a cousin to Meri’s kid, and cousins to Robyn’s two… That’s Dayton and Aurora that she had with Kody.

But there are more ties there, which is very interesting. What Gwendlyn said was when I was in high school or middle school, “when I first learned about that, I used to always refer to Aurora as — since she and I are biologically second cousins — she’s also biologically my sister because we are genetically related and we’re sisters.”

Sister Wives - Gwendlyn Brown

She’s saying that because they have a genetic tie through Aurora’s dad and Gwendlyn’s mom that they are biologically related. That is true. They are biologically second cousins. Then she says, “she’s also biologically my sister.”

Gwendlyn Considers Aurora Brown Her “Biological” Sister

She’s saying that because they were raised as sisters and then they share a biological tie — that they’re biological sisters. That is emphatically and scientifically untrue.

That’s an emotional statement. The Sister Wives daughter considers her adopted sister a biological sister because of this. But, scientifically, no, not accurate, but you know, it’s very sweet. So, we’re going to look into that real quick.

If you’re not familiar with it, the complicated overall family tree with the Browns. So, right now, Kody has three ex-wives, one legal wife, six grandkids, 18 kids, and that includes the biological kids and the ones he adopted from Robyn.

It’s all very confusing, and they were all raised, even when they lived in separate homes together with the idea that they have one dad and four moms. But things of course are more complicated now with grown kids and all this going on.

So, Meri was wife one. She was the only one legally married to Kody in the beginning. And they married back in 1990. But it was in 2014 that they divorced.

So, they had been married 24 years when Kody divorced her to marry Robyn so he could adopt the three kids she had with David Jessop, one of the ones being Aurora, who Gwendlyn Brown was talking about.

After Sister Wives Divorce, Meri Went Looking Online

It was a year after that divorce when Meri started looking around and got catfished. And of course, we all know about that because they spent almost three seasons of Sister Wives discussing the catfish, catfish, catfish.

Nobody wants to hear about the catfish anymore, but it looks like that him divorcing her and taking another legal wife, aggravated her to the point that she went looking online for love.

At that point, Meri and Kody were already having problems, but her looking for another guy definitely changed the vibe. And what’s interesting is although Meri was the first wife that he married, she was the last wife to leave him.

Christine went first, then Janelle, and then Meri finally left. But Meri had been trying for years and had rejection, after rejection, after rejection.

And Kody said in the last season, he wished she would just find another man and move on. He’s clearly not going to take her back. And she finally recognized what a lot of Sister Wives fans had been waiting on — that it wasn’t ever going to get better.

Meri & Kody Brown Share One Kid

So, do Kody and Meri have any kids? Yes, they have one kid. Meri Brown suffered infertility and at one point they’d even talked about Robyn maybe being a surrogate for them to have a second biological child, but they never pursued that.

So, Kody and Meri have one child, Leon Brown, who was born in July 1995. Leon revealed that they’re transgender in June of last year, and that was a whole big thing with the family. But it looks like everything has settled down now.

Leon has a partner, Audrey Kriss, and they seem to be pursuing their happily ever after. Janelle and Kody had a lot more kids. They had eight. So, what’s interesting also is that Janelle was wife two, but she got pregnant before Meri did. Meri and Kody got married in 1990.

Janelle is the Second of the Sister Wives, But Gave Birth First

Kody and Janelle had their oldest son, Logan Brown, in May of 1994, a year before Meri had Leon. Then there’s Madison Brown Brush, who was the second child — born in November 1995.

In February 1997, Janelle had Hunter Brown. Then she had Garrison Brown almost a year later in April 1998. Next came Gabriel Brown, who was born in October of 2001. And Savannah Brown was born in December 2004.

And it’s Savannah that we were seeing primarily in the last season of Sister Wives when Janelle was living in her RV on the property. But Savannah wasn’t really happy about it. But now she will be 19 by the end of the year and out on her own.

And that freed Janelle up to leave Kody. So, Janelle and Kody had a spiritual marriage that lasted almost 30 years. But then she walked out on him in late 2022 following Christine out the door.

Christine Had Six Kids with Kody Brown – Including Gwendlyn Brown

Christine and Kody had six kids. That was the wife that he took after Janelle. And theirs was also a spiritual marriage, not a legal marriage. And the way that things worked with the kids growing up — if you know your history — is that Janelle mostly worked outside the home. She had a real job.

Not saying that motherhood’s not a real job, but she had a job where she was out earning a paycheck as a Realtor and Christine basically raised Janelle’s kids alongside her own. So, Christine is super close to Janelle’s kids and vice versa.

All their kids are very, very close because they grew up with Christine raising them day to day as the caregiver. Some of the allegations that have come out recently from the older Brown kids relate to them being uncomfortable around Meri when they were growing up.

So, that explains why all the Sister Wives kids from these two women are tightly bonded and not so bonded with some of the other kids, Robyn’s kids that maybe came later. And then Meri’s one kid.

Kody and Christine’s oldest is Aspyn Brown. Born in March 1995, and then Mykelti Brown came a year later in June 1996. Paedon Brown, who’s been another one who’s been spilling the tea about the family, came along in August 1998 and Gwendlyn Brown in October 2001.

Then Ysabel Brown was born March 2003, and Kody and Christine’s youngest, Truely Brown, was born in April 2010. She’s a teenager this year. She’ll be turning 13 very soon.

Sister Wives Walk out – How Many Kids Does Kody Have with His Only Wife?

Janelle waited until her last kid left the house and then she left Kody. But Christine couldn’t hang on waiting another five years for Truely to turn 18.

So, she just took Truely and walked away — and went to Utah. And then we’ve got Sister Wives Kody and Robyn’s kids. So back to Robyn. She was married to a guy named David Jessop, and they had three kids.

She had Dayton Jessop, born in January 2000. And Aurora Jessop was born in June 2003. Then, Breanna Jessop was in April of 2004. Now those kids are Dayton Brown, Aurora Brown, and Breanna Brown because they took Kody’s name after he legally married Robyn and legally adopted them.

And we’re back to the fact that Robyn’s ex is Christine’s cousin. So it’s very bizarre. And then together, Kody and Robyn have Solomon Brown, who was born in October 2011, and Ariella Brown in January 2016.

So, those two kids are younger than Truely Brown by a few years. And of course, everything’s complicated now because all of the other wives’ kids are either grown and moved away or just moved away in the case of Truely and Christine Brown.

Gwendlyn Brown Revelation Surprises Some Sister Wives Fans

The only day-to-day interactions that Kody has in person with any kids are the kids with Robyn. There’s the two that are younger, and the older ones that are still living at home.

That’s also interesting because you’ll remember in the last season of Sister Wives, Janelle argued with Kody about him saying when the kids are 18, she needed to toss them out.

But there’s no sign of tossing 18-year-old kids out of Robyn Brown’s house. So that’s the messy family tree. And this little easter egg was cracked open again recently with Gwendlyn Brown’s revelation about Christine Brown and David Jessop being cousins.

And her surprising statement that she considers Aurora, her biological sister. What she is to Gwendlyn, is her biological second cousin. But you know, that’s how Gwendlyn Brown sees her. And that’s our look at the messy, messy Brown family tree.

Thanks for listening to this Sister Wives podcast.