“Extra” sat down with “Sister Wives” stars Christine Brown Woolley and Janelle Brown to talk about Season 19, which they say brings ups and downs and lots of big life changes!
Janelle said it’s, “Kind of like next generation, second chapter. We’re both starting over in different ways.”
Christine added, “I think it’s a reign of independence. It’s a lot of independence, it’s a lot of personal growth.”
Despite their marriages to Kody Brown being over, the women “wish him well.” Janelle added, “I don’t really have much interaction with him.”
Christine shared her two cents, saying, “I wish he had a relationship with his kids. I’m heartbroken for him because his kids are some of the best people that I know. His children are phenomenal people, and I love having them in my life.”
Janelle chimed in, saying, “They’re really the glue that is the family, right? I feel like we’re sort of in orbit around these kids.”
Christine gave her opinion, saying, “I think it’s us. You and I are the glue because we decided to still be ‘Sister Wives’ afterwards. We didn’t have to, but we talked. After I told everybody I was leaving, you came over and you talked to me and you’re like, ‘What does this mean for us now?’ and I’m like, ‘We’ll be fine’ but it wasn’t until we went on vacation together that I realized we actually are the glue.”
Janelle somewhat disagreed, saying, “Maybe. Come on, the kids, they have this secret text message thread that Christine and I are not part of, it’s the ride or die text… They all talk, we don’t know what’s always going on.”
Christine wished that Kody would call his kids more, saying, “I’ve told my kids, ‘Look, when your dad calls, you need to pick it up and you need to talk to him because he’s a person and he is your dad. You’ve got to respect that.’”
Janelle added, “There’s such a burnt bridge. I think it could be reconciled but it would take a lot of work, and I really feel like the burden of that work sits with Kody.”
Of their continued sisterhood and bond, Christine shared, “I raised my kids with her, and we have grandkids together, and our kids our siblings.”
“More shared history almost than my own sister,” Janelle noted.
When asked about adapting to their new lives without Kody, Janelle answered, “It was actually, maybe, easier because we no longer had the interpersonal… because like when you’re in a relationship, like a plural family, there’s so many relationship dynamics and a lot of reasons to get frustrated with another person. And now I feel like almost, we have all the good things, all the history, but we don’t have all of the many relationship challenges. I think it almost got easier for us.”
Christine is now married to husband David Woolley, which we’ll get to see play out from dating to their wedding!
She commented, “Sometimes I think I show a little bit too much, we share a little bit too much, the PDA. I’m sorry about all of that, but also, I loved living it.”
Janelle joked, “When I get the clips, I’m like, ‘Fast-forward, fast-forward, fast-forward.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t need to see that because I hang out with you.’”
Christine gushed, “I love being in a relationship that I get to just be as open affectionately as I want.”
She said of how her life has changed with David, “I have a partnership now. I have a partner, and he’s there for me always. I’m secure in this… He’s always there for me, always, and loves me so phenomenally and so deeply and so richly, but I feel like I’m more independent now than I ever was before, and do more now than I ever did before… It’s amazing to me the level of depth that we have that I had no idea existed.”
Christine also brought attention to how “simple” her life is now with David, saying, “If something comes up now, I’ll just talk to David and we just figure it out. It’s done, versus before, we had like a committee of adults and you have to sort things out all together.”
This season, we will get to see Janelle and Meri reconnect.
Janelle explained, “Once the marriages were over, there wasn’t much that connected us or in common. I’ve never had any ill will… There was nothing, bad blood or anything between us but, like, we did find something in common with a challenge that we’re both facing, and so we did come together for that… It doesn’t mean that we’re necessarily gonna go on vacation together or something. It’s a little bit different than Christine, but it was wonderful to work with her.”
In terms of where she stands with Robyn, Janelle said, “I have not really seen Robyn or Kody. I’ve seen Kody, with the death of our son, of course I was interacting with Kody more. But like, I don’t really hang out, I don’t have any conversations with them. I just wish them well They have a very separate life, and I’m just gonna go on living my life.”
Janelle also opened up about how her family is doing after the devastating loss of son Garrison Brown. She said, “Everybody is in a pretty good space. I feel like it actually brought us closer. We’re really checking in on each other like for real now. We ask about mental health now and we wait for the real answer. We don’t necessarily brush it off.”
“Sister Wives” airs Sundays on TLC.