Kody Brown Says Janelle Plays Him in Sister Wives Reunion Trailer

Exes Kody Brown and Janelle Brown ended Sister Wives season 20 with a spiritual divorce — but their tension hasn’t simmered, at least according to the new Sister Wives: 1-on-1 trailer.

“There was no backdoor deal,” Janelle, 56, insists in the first look at the reunion special, referring to Kody’s season 20 claim that the pair went behind Meri Brown and Robyn Brown’s backs and were planning to sell their joint Coyote Pass property without their input.

Robyn, 47, is visibly upset by the idea that her husband, 56, was allegedly scheming behind her back as well. “Him and Janelle are talking about a backdoor deal where they sell the property out from under Meri,” she tells Sister Wives: 1-on-1 host Sukanya Krishnan in the trailer, which dropped on Sunday, January 4.

While Janelle claims she never spoke with Kody about selling the land in Arizona — which sold in April 2025 — behind anyone’s back, he remains adamant that she was pulling strings throughout the ordeal.

“Janelle plays me all the time because I loved her and might still — I want her approval,” Kody alleges during one of his reunion interviews. (The Sister Wives: 1-on-1 special will include four episodes starting on Sunday, January 11.)

He also expresses frustration with Janelle for her alleged negative comments about his and Robyn’s marriage. “It’s like, what is it, Janelle? Am I Robyn’s puppet or is she mine?” Kody quips.

Christine Brown, who was the only one of Kody’s exes not involved in the land dispute, claims the drama is “a perfect example of why our family broke apart.” (Christine, 53, left Kody in 2021. Janelle confirmed her separation from Kody in 2022, and Meri, 54, announced her and Kody’s split in 2023.)

The property sale isn’t the only point of contention in the trailer; there is drama surrounding Meri and her fallout with Robyn following her and Kody’s breakup in 2023.

“Do you understand why Meri could have a right to distrust you?” Krishnan asks Robyn in the video. “No! She was having a conversation online,” Robyn claps back.

Robyn is seemingly referring to Meri’s 2015 catfishing scandal in which she corresponded online with a person she thought was a man amid her marriage to Kody. The scandal previously rocked Meri and Kody’s romance, and Meri later claimed Robyn made it worse by spreading rumors that she had a physical affair — which Meri denied.

“If your wife’s having an affair, that’s my business no matter what,” Kody yells in the Sister Wives 1-on-1 trailer.

Meri’s issues with Robyn appear to go even deeper than their catfish connection. According to the reunion trailer, Meri brings her BFF Jen to sit beside her and address her own experiences with Kody and Robyn over the years.

Jen reveals she thinks that Robyn is “submissive,” telling Krishnan, “I feel like that works for Kody.”

The allegation takes Kody by surprise, and he claims she’s “full of s***.”

Meri also has beef with Janelle in the trailer. Their drama stems from Meri revealing during the season 20 reunion, which aired on Sunday, that it was “really hard” to have Janelle join her and Kody’s family shortly after Janelle divorced Meri’s brother Adam Barber.

“Meri was more than willing to kind of engage in, like, a heated conversation,” Janelle reveals in the reunion teaser.

Meri, meanwhile, points to their familial past as the catalyst for her early arguments with Janelle.

“Oh, there might have been some emotions involved with the fact that she used to be married to my brother,” Meri quips, referring to Janelle and Adam’s brief marriage in the early 1990s. (Janelle and Adam attended Meri’s 1990 wedding to Kody as a couple. Once Janelle divorced Adam that same year, she became Kody’s second wife in 1993.)

Elsewhere in the trailer, fans see that Kody and Christine’s husband, David Woolley, have not buried the hatchet either after their argument during Kody’s ex-wives apology tour this season.

When Kody met up with Christine and David, 61, in Las Vegas to discuss his past wrongdoings, David ruffled his feathers offering parenting advice.

“Any of his experience with his children and any of his advice for me is something that I’m just not interested in at this point, because it’s like he’s kind of just on the opposite side of this,” Kody said of David during a December 2025 episode of the TLC series.

While that episode was filmed some time ago, David and Kody don’t appear to be on the best terms during the 1-on-1 special.

“David’s a guy and guys think they’ve got things figured out. And plural marriage is the kind of thing that tells you you don’t know s***,” Kody claims.

Christine, meanwhile, calls “bulls***” on Kody’s apology tour and backs her husband amid his and Kody’s feud.

The season 20 Sister Wives: 1-on-1 special begins on TLC Sunday, January 11, at 10 p.m. ET.