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There was a time when many Sister Wives viewers felt sorry for Meri Brown.
But the “poor Meri” days are over.
During her most recent interview, Mykelti Brown discussed the “mean” sister wife.
She remembers “cowering” in her presence, but how nothing that she or her siblings said or did made a difference.
‘I do not like Meri’
During this week’s episode of the Cults to Consciousness podcast, Mykelti Brown appeared as a guest.
The Sister Wives star spoke on a series of interesting topics — from how growing up in a polygamous family made her imagine herself as a sister wife one day to how TLC changed the family dynamic to how the family unit began to fracture less dramatically than some might guess.
But, of course, this conversation also included discussion of Meri.
“I do not like Meri,” Mykelti expressed. For those unfamiliar with Sister Wives, she added: “She is my dad’s first wife.”
She continued: “I do not like her … she was mean growing up.” Mykelti then added that Meri “still is” mean, even now.
“I don’t care what she looks like on the show,” Mykelti continued, reminding everyone that behavior changes when someone knows that they are on camera.
“She was aggressive. She was manipulative,” she listed.
Remember how Christine realized that she was the “basement wife” of the family? Meri’s position, until Robyn, was the opposite.
“She was the favorite wife,” Mykelti described. “And she got the favorite wife privileges and perks.”
But Meri still had the responsibility of watching the family’s children. And Mykelti and at least some of her siblings dreaded those times.
She remembers ‘cowering’ around the sister wife
“All of us kids were cowering and we were all scared,” Mykelti recalled. “We were all like, ‘OK, whatever you say, Meri. Just don’t hurt me, don’t be mean to me. Don’t yell at me.’”
(Mykelti does not bring up specific allegations of physical abuse, but she has admitted that she watches her words on this topic to avoid consequences for her family and their show.)
“She had this, like, scream she would do [when] she wasn’t getting her way and it was, like, pure loud and angry and just scary,” she described.
Mykelti elaborated: “It was like what you would imagine a freaking dragon screaming at a little child. Think about that.”
That sounds like both toxic behavior and a sign of a disturbed and emotionally immature individual.
According to Mykelti, when Meri was in charge, they all got “severely disciplined, talked down to, grounded.”
Naturally, many Sister Wives fans — and others — might be asking why the Brown kids didn’t simply talk to the other sister wives, especially their biological mothers, about it.
Over time, Mykelti explained, they learned to not bring it up, because nothing changed. It seemed like none of the parents wanted to hear it.
“They didn’t talk about it [and say], ‘No, no, that’s not OK for any parent to do that,’” she lamented. Kody, she said, also seemed to brush it off.
This is actually extremely common in families when there’s one bad parent. Other factors — a stepparent, one parent being the breadwinner, and both parents’ cultural backgrounds can also lead to otherwise good (or at least, relatively better) parents turning a blind eye to their own child’s mistreatment, sometimes in the name of “presenting a united front.”
Like so many bad childhoods, things only improved when they got bigger
“So it got to the point where we just stopped saying something,” Mykelti elaborated.
“Until we got older and then we got bigger, stronger, tougher, and knew this wasn’t OK,” she continued. “That’s when it stopped.”
Mykelti added that filming for Sister Wives didn’t make things any easier.
She and her siblings were instructed to not discuss family drama — except what fit things that the adults were sharing on camera. That definitely included Meri.
It is heartbreaking that Mykelti and her siblings had to go through that. They, and millions of other children at any given moment, deserve much better.
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