‘Sister Wives’ star Janelle Brown accuses Kody of secretly withdrawing family funds: "Lots of it..."
In a bombshell, ‘Sister Wives’ reality star Janelle Brown spoke out about her ex-husband Kody Brown misusing the family’s money. The reality star recently claimed in the popular TLC show that Kody has been taking large sums of money from the family funds without discussing it with the wives. Janelle elaborated that money decisions were made together in the early years of their plural marriage. In other words, each wife was entitled to decide how family finances were spent. However, she inadvertently let slip that this changed in the later years of their relationship.
According to Janelle, Kody began using the family’s shared accounts without saying anything. As the keeper of the books, she noticed the pattern but admitted she wasn’t always able to decipher where the money went. Janelle stated that funds had been going missing for “the last several years,” explaining, “Kody would just take out funds, and I don’t know what for.” She added, “The money was just being spent, and lots of it.” Janelle said it pains her to see Kody use the family’s resources non-transparently, especially when times were lean.
She even went as far as to wonder if Kody would equitably split up their assets, which include the Coyote Pass property, now that the family has fractured. “We set our family up that way. But, like, toward the end, it was just really hard,” Janelle said. “When we all first started, there was kind of like this thing [where] we weighed in on what bills should be paid, how we were going to pay, who got priority.” She said she knows where all the money is going. “I see all the art on their walls. I see all these things. And that’s fine, I have money and I’ve spent it on things too,” she added.
Kody has dismissed her concerns, claiming he had many financial responsibilities. In a confessional, he said, “I was a father to 18 and a husband to more than just Janelle.” He added further, “So we had a lot of places that money needed to go that weren’t always Janelle’s business.” Kody also accused Janelle of messing with the family’s bookkeeping and said she could’ve paid the bills herself if she wanted to. “So, some of the bills to be paid by all of us were supposed to be paid by her,” he added.
Janelle, however, fired back, calling Kody’s accusations unfair, claiming he used her role as bookkeeper to make it look like she controlled the family’s money when, in reality, he was the one making secretive financial decisions. “He loves this mantra that somehow I was [the] all-powerful one with all the financial control,” she said. “I really was just the person who recorded the transactions and sent them to the CPA.” Talking to Kody’s other ex-wife Christine, she added, “I never felt like I had much control over my own money because everybody was pulling from the same [account].”
Janelle and Kody ended their marriage in December 2022 after being together for almost 30 years. A source confirmed Intouch Weekly on Janelle’s separation, stating “Janelle is a strong independent woman and realized she can do it on her own,” adding how she left him because she “outgrew him.” Even Janelle admitted how she ended the marriage because Christine decided to leave Kody. “If [Christine] hadn’t left, I might’ve stayed,” she told PEOPLE.
