Kody Brown was overcome by a wave of emotion while moving ex-wife Meri Brown to Utah — and she didn’t see it coming.
“Meri’s just on point today. She’s just the wonderful woman that I would have liked to have been married to,” Kody, 55, told the cameras during the Sunday, November 24, episode of Sister Wives, after laughing and joking around with Meri, 53, in the kitchen of her Arizona home.
The exes, who confirmed their split in January 2023 after more than 30 years together, were on good terms during the episode as Kody helped her pack up her home.
“Hey, listen, we’re like the best divorced couple ever,” Meri told Kody and her brother-in-law, Nathan, who was also there to help her move. “Yeah, she is the favorite divorced wife,” Kody teased, referring to his other exes, Christine Brown and Janelle Brown.
The pair’s fun and games came to an end when Kody successfully unpacked Meri’s things at her bed and breakfast in Utah. When he went to leave, he started to cry and wouldn’t let go of Meri.
“Meri, it’s the end of the era. It’s a great run, but I’m not going to let it get me down,” Kody said through tears. “[It] always blows me away that you get emotional like this. I just don’t understand,” Meri said in response.
Once Meri pulled away, Kody explained that this is the first time he’s really come to terms with the finality of their breakup.
“We had something special. … I’m not bitter anymore. I’m not angry. I’m glad you and I got that figured out. I’m glad that we were able to be friends. I’m glad that you’re my favorite ex-wife,” Kody said. “But it’s the weirdest thing to be in that place. It is just heartbreaking in a way.”
He continued, “I love the life I have, but it’s a very different life than what I had three years ago, you know? And it just seemed like everybody else just went, ‘This isn’t important.’”
Kody confessed that he’d been “so angry with Christine and Janelle that I haven’t been able to really address the mourning. I’ve just been angry.” (Christine, 52, announced her split from Kody in November 2021, while Janelle, 55, revealed their separation in December 2022.)
But when it comes to his relationship with Meri, he said, “I’m through that anger phase.” Kody proceeded to apologize for his wrongdoings, saying, “I’m sorry about the seven years, but I’m glad we did it because now I can mourn a loss instead of being angry. Does that make sense?”
Kody continued to spiral, telling Meri that “if you marry again” that he “won’t be weird,” admitting that the last few minutes “got weird.”
When one of Meri’s friends, who was watching the whole exchange, asked Kody, “Would you be the flower girl?” he replied, “No, I get to walk her down the aisle.”
Kody’s remark stunned Meri, who married Kody in 1990. The couple got legally divorced in 2014 and Kody married fourth wife Robyn Brown and adopted her children from another marriage. Meri and Kody remained in a spiritual union for nearly another decade before they agreed it was over.
“I don’t get it. I don’t know where this is coming from. I do not understand it,” Meri told the cameras. “He has made it clear that he did not want me in his life. So why this emotion?”
Meri, who shares Leon with Kody, was gobsmacked by Kody talking about her future relationships as well.
“The fact that he’s saying he wants to walk me down the aisle when I get married again, I’m like, like, ‘Why would he say that?’” she said in a confessional. “Is he serious? Is he trying to make a joke? Like I can’t tell. I don’t know what’s going on.”
Meri also questioned his sincerity. “He’s sobbing. He’s saying it’s the end of an era. And I’m thinking it didn’t have to be this way,” she told the cameras. She later added, “I am floored by [this]. I don’t know what to do with this.”
Kody, meanwhile, told the cameras that after his splits from Christine and Janelle, parting ways with Meri felt like “the final nail in the coffin of our dream” as a polygamist family.
Kody ended his visit with another hug, telling Meri, “This is the end of an era and now we have permission to move on.”
Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.
