Following Kody Brown’s breakups with three of his four wives, his relationships with most of his adult children have become strained — including those with daughters Ysabel Brown and Maddie Brown.
Christine Brown and Kody’s daughter Ysabel, 22, got real on the Sunday, November 30, episode of Sister Wives about how her stepfather, David Woolley, has factored into her life amid her rocky dynamic with Kody, 56.
“When my mom and David first started dating, it all happened, like, very fast, and I wasn’t used to another man in my mom’s life. So, I was really worried about what kind of role he would take up,” Ysabel said, referring to Christine and David’s whirlwind romance before they tied the knot in October 2023. “I was worried mostly that he would take up the role of dad in our family, which, we have a dad.”
Ysabel confessed, “I thought that he might take up too much space,” revealing that David “doesn’t do that” and he “never oversteps.”
She gushed, “He’s very respectful. He’s very respectful of my dad. He’s very respectful of my mom and her kids and that she is a mom to us and that he is her husband and not our dad.”
Ysabel shared that David’s place in her life — being hands-on without replacing Kody — is “a hard thing to balance, especially if your dad isn’t very, like, prevalent in your life.”
She told the cameras that she and Kody haven’t spent a ton of time together since Christine, 53, left him in November 2021. (Christine and Kody share six children, including Ysabel.)
“My dad and I do not talk very often, no,” Ysabel explained. “My dad and I aren’t, like, close, close, close, close, close, close. But I mean, he’s still my dad and I love him.”
Ysabel added that over the past few years she “realized how much of a role my mom has in my life,” calling Christine “two people in one.”
“She can be the dad and she can be the mom and she’s perfect at it. And then David’s awesome too,” Ysabel concluded.
Elsewhere in the episode, Maddie, 30, who is Kody’s eldest daughter with Janelle Brown, shared an update on her ongoing rift with her father.
After Janelle, 56, revealed that Kody reached out to set up a time to visit her in North Carolina following their 2022 split, Maddie said she is hopeful that someday they will all be in a better place.
“I think there could be forgiveness,” Maddie, who is a mother of four herself, told her mom.
Janelle confessed, “It seems so far out there for him to have a relationship with you guys again,” referring to Maddie and her four remaining siblings. (Janelle and Kody welcomed six children during their marriage. Their son Garrison died by suicide in March 2024 at the age of 25.)
“I am open to reconciliation and forgiveness and just closure,” Maddie explained. “But if he ever wanted to be let back into our lives, there would need to be a pattern of consistency.”
Janelle, for her part, noted that she and Kody are “pretty” good when it comes to working together, noting they’d been in contact a few times since Garrison’s passing.
“He called to check on me on the anniversary of Garrison’s death. And on his birthday, he called to check on me,” Janelle said. “And I actually thought about calling him, but I’m like, ‘Is that weird?’ But it was fine. Like, it was all fine.”
As Sister Wives fans know, Kody was married to Meri Brown, Janelle, Christine and Robyn Brown before their plural family started to crumble a few years ago. (Kody and Robyn, 47, are still married.)
When Christine announced her split from Kody in 2021, she revealed that Kody had not been sleeping in her room for some time and said she considered herself a single parent.
Janelle, meanwhile, hit a rough patch with Kody prior to their 2022 separation after he butted heads with her sons Garrison and Gabriel, 24, over his rules during the coronavirus pandemic shutdown.
Meri, 54, confirmed in January 2023 that she and Kody had parted ways. Their one child, Leon, 30, recently spoke out about their relationship with Kody after he claimed on Sister Wives earlier this month that he “reached out to every one of my children” on multiple occasions to make amends.
According to Leon, that is not the case. “Let me be so f***ing clear: I have not heard from that man since my brother killed himself,” Leon wrote via their Instagram Story on Tuesday, November 25, referring to Garrison’s death.
“Kody blatantly blew me off at Garrison’s funeral,” Leon alleged, calling Kody “a liar. He is a joke of a father. That’s all.”
Us Weekly previously reached out to TLC for comment.
Sister Wives airs on TLC Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.
