Kody Brown and his family reflected on son Garrison Brown’s death during the recent episode of Sister Wives — and pondered what’s next without him.
“Grief comes in waves. It just wasn’t supposed to be this way. You know what I’m saying?” Kody, 56, said during the Sunday, May 4, episode of the TLC series, which is the first time the family addressed Garrison’s death on camera. “It’s just heartbreaking.”
Kody confessed, “I didn’t get a chance to really just make things right, just not being able to say goodbye.”
Us Weekly confirmed in March 2024 that Garrison died by suicide at age 25. He was one of Kody and second wife Janelle Brown’s six children.
Kody, who separated from Janelle, 55, in December 2022, revealed on the episode that he doesn’t know “what to do with his death” because of all the what ifs.
“It’s like I’ve got to do something different because I could have had more time with him, and I thought there would be more time,” he confessed. “Everybody thinks they got more time.”
Kody broke down to his remaining wife, Robyn Brown, during the episode, asking, “How am I going to do this? How do I do the rest of my life with every holiday and every birthday?”
He added, “All the frustration I had over stuff with COVID and everything like that, all of a sudden that’s just, like, they’re so unimportant. I’m just sad. Sad about what would have been.”
Kody butted heads with Garrison and son Gabriel Brown in 2020 over his strict COVID-19 rules, which created a rift between him and the boys. Since his death, Kody said he made it his mission to get Garrison’s ashes back to Wyoming, where most of his extended family is buried.
“It’s a pilgrimage in a way, just part of the process for me,” Kody explained. “It’s the only thing I want from it. … I just want to take his body home and put him in the ground.”
Scroll down to see how the rest of Kody’s family learned of Garrison’s death and how they are mourning his loss:
Janelle Brown
Garrison’s mom recalled during Sunday’s episode that her son Gabriel was the one who found his brother in his home in Arizona. Janelle explained that after talking with Garrison throughout the day he stopped texting her around 8:30 p.m., so she asked his brothers to check in on him.
She went to bed and woke up to a call from Gabriel, who told her Garrison was dead. “I don’t know what happened that night he did that because he’s had other nights like this where he would drink and then pass out and he would go kind of radio silent, but he’d be back in the morning,” Janelle explained. “I don’t know what happened this time.”
Janelle noted that Garrison’s drinking became a problem during the coronavirus pandemic and even though he had “support” and “resources” to get help, he was struggling.
“He had anxiety and depression and then he started drinking as a way to sort of soothe that,” she told her sister Carrie during the episode. “And then just became the animal he couldn’t get a hold of. We did everything we could. And I know that.”
Christine Brown
Kody’s third wife, whom he split from in November 2021, revealed that Janelle’s son Hunter Brown is the one who informed her of Garrison’s death. “He was sobbing, and I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ He just said, ‘Garrison killed himself,’ and I just fell on the floor in the office,” Christine, 53, recalled.
Christine later recalled the “beautiful” service they had as a family where she spoke about Garrison as a child. She ended her speech with his favorite movie quote about a dragon that dies and becomes a constellation.
“The last line is, ‘When we want to look for him again, we look to the stars.’ And I looked right at [my daughter] Mykelti and said, ‘To the stars’ [and cried],” she remembered.
Meri Brown
Meri, who was married to Kody from 1990 to 2023, was filming a Sister Wives confessional interview when she got multiple calls from her ex-husband. He informed her that Garrison had taken his own life, and she quickly went to see him and later Janelle.
“It was just this weird, weird, surreal moment,” Meri said of the phone call with Kody, noting that she didn’t believe “one of our kids” would commit suicide.
After hanging up the phone, Meri said she went to Kody and Robyn’s house and Christine’s daughter Gwendlyn Brown was there. “She just came out and she just, like, hung on to me,” Meri said through tears. “Oh gosh. I didn’t even know what to do.”
“I called Janelle [next] and I said, ‘I’m stopping, I’m getting food and I’ll be over in a little bit, then I’ll just be there,’” Meri recalled. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
Robyn Brown
“I’m in my room working and [Kody] came in and he’s just looking really shocked and I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’” Robyn, 46, recounted of the moment Kody told her that Garrison was gone. “He just started crying and I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, what? No.’ I’m just trying to gather the details, trying to figure out what’s going on. I’m trying to be there for him, trying to register the shock myself, trying to register what’s going on myself. He just fell apart.”
Maddie Brown
Kody and Janelle’s eldest daughter was one of the children who went on camera to discuss her brother’s death. She remembered talking to Janelle on and off that entire day when her mom called her again and broke the news.
“I was like, ‘Oh weird, I was just about to call you,’ and she said, ‘I am driving to Garrison’s house. He committed suicide,’” Maddie told the cameras.
She confessed, “There’s a few moments in your life that I feel like alter your brain chemistry, and I definitely feel like calling siblings that a sibling had died definitely alters your brain chemistry.”
Maddie added that before his death, she tried to convince Garrison to move to North Carolina near her family. She revealed Garrison was “getting closer” to agreeing when he died.
Gabriel Brown
Gabriel, who found Garrison’s body, shared happier moments of his brother with the cameras. “Gare really was, like, so genuine and he didn’t let on to it a lot, but he always felt a lot deeper than he expressed,” Gabriel revealed. “Everyone in my family knows that.”
“He brought an air of ease. He made an incredible effort to everyone around him to make them comfortable,” Gabriel recalled. “And I think that that’s the real mark of a gentleman. And I think that, yeah, I think that Gare did it well.”
Mykelti Brown
Mykelti, who is one of Kody and Christine’s six kids, remembered Garrison as “cool” and the “jokester of the family.” She gushed, “He was hilarious.”
Mykelti’s husband, Tony Padron, also remembered Garrison’s silly personality. “He was very fun. I thought he was just a joy,” Tony said. “He’s very smiley, very, very chill, very easy going. He always had a ton of friends. He’s a very friendly guy, cool dude, just nice.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or chat at 988lifeline.org.
Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.
