Since 2010, audiences have been hooked on the antics of the polygamist Brown family,
whose plural marriage is featured on the show Sister Wives. From catfishing
to uncomfortable sermons, here are the most cringeworthy moments in the hit reality show.
Meri Brown's online dating
mishap is probably the biggest scandal to emerge from the Sister Wives world. In 2015,
Kody Brown's first wife, Meri, was romanced by a man who went by the name Sam Cooper
on Twitter. Once Meri discovered that she was being catfished and ended their relationship,
the man exposed damning details about the dalliance, including photos of Meri,
quote, "posing seductively with a banana" and explicit text messages,
according to InTouch. Unfortunately for Meri, the man turned out to be a woman named Jackie Overton,
who InTouch called, quote, "an infamous online scammer" who had already duped multiple victims.
Season 9, episode 12 chronicled the beginning of the messy fallout from the online trap. The
incident essentially signaled the dissolution of Kody and Meri's relationship, although the
two were apparently already somewhat on the rocks. As Kody said in Season 15, Episode 8,
"The catfishing thing was really just a wake up call for Meri and I.
Our problem ran much deeper than that, and it's probably why the catfishing even happened."
Meri also recognized the damage done to the marriage.
"The relationship between he and I is gone, it's dead, it's over."
Apparently, when Sister Wives kid Mykelti asked Christine Brown to
sing at her 2016 wedding in Season 12, Episode 5, Christine at first thought she was joking.
Not a great way to start a gig, especially since Christine claims
she only agreed to sing at her daughter's wedding because she reportedly wasn't in
favor of the union at first, and wanted to show Mykelti that she really does approve.
Christine took her job as wedding singer very seriously, even signing up for lessons
in order to prepare for the big day. We aren't knocking Christine's singing,
but the moment Christine takes the stage is pretty awkward. Still, we have to hand it to her,
it takes a lot of guts to get up in front of all your friends and family and belt out a song.
If you have not had your fill of cringe by this point, try listening to Kody and
Christine Brown haphazardly attempt to give their daughter, Mykelti, the talk
in Season 7, Episode 1. Mykelti sits there as TLC's viewership watches her mom, dad,
and a whole camera crew warn the new couple off of evils like hand-holding and kissing.
As if things couldn't get more awkward, Mykelti's boyfriend happens to be in the room, too.
"She's got my biology, so I know if she holds your hand, she's going to really like you."
The whole conversation is incredibly painful,
but the highlight of the lecture was Kody's bizarre take on human biology. He said,
"When you kiss, the person that you kiss, their hormones go into your mouth. And it
registers certain things that will stimulate both the heart and the body for other reasons."
Uh... what? Ten points to Mykelti for not immediately melting into an Alex Mack-style
puddle and slithering right out the door. We certainly would not blame her for peacing out
and moving to Canada the second her dad started joking about cleaning his gun.
Not a single wife wanted to leave Las Vegas
for Flagstaff, but as we've learned through the past fifteen Seasons of Sister Wives, Kody Brown
always has the final say. In Season 13, Episode 4, he announced to his spouses that the family would
be relocating, later lamenting that he did not understand why the family was not thrilled about
it given that he had been telling his wives for three years that they would eventually move. When
the time finally came to discuss leaving Nevada, some of the wives were upset, citing various
reasons for wanting to stay put, including keeping the kids in their current school districts.
"My biggest concern, and I really don't care about the money. I've got to protect my kid."
The cringiest moment? Pretty much all of Kody's presentation, which seemed to be modeled to trick
the wives into coming to the conclusion that the family needed to move. Christine called
out the manipulative behavior on camera, saying she felt that, quote, "He never really said it,
he kind of left it up to us. [...] So one of us said it out of our mouths." The moment was
tense, awkward, and set the stage for the move to incite drama down the road, particularly when
he later pushes for the wives to share one big house rather than have their own space.
The beach is the perfect place to relax and reconnect with your spouse.
There's the soothing waves, the warm sand, and therapy? In Season 9, Episode 4, Kody
and Christine Brown decided to turn their vacation into a couples therapy retreat. To put it simply,
the whole episode is a cringe-fest. The therapist tags along on their romantic walk on the beach,
a pirate cosplay therapy session where Kody won't stop talking like a buccaneer,
and convertible rides around the island. Christine admits midway
through the episode that her marriage with Kody has, quote, "No trust. No intimacy."
The retreat is full of bonding exercises that do not seem to help Kody and Christine realize
their love for each other. At one point, the couple even bickers about which beach stones
to use while building a metaphorical marriage. Christine argues for the small ones because,
quote, "they're easier to carry," but Kody comes back with a barb.
"Yeah, but they don't make a good foundation."
We aren't sure what that's supposed to mean,
but it comes off as depressing as it is uncomfortable to watch.
Robyn, Meri, Christine,
Janelle, and Kody Brown have been pushing their jewelry brand, My Sisterwife's Closet,
for years now. Season 7, Episode 2 started with the family realizing that they needed a cohesive
vision for the business to gain investors. The wives bicker throughout the episode,
questioning each other's commitment to the business and sales savvy. Kody, of course,
inserts his own brand of patriarchal drama as the wives try to hash it out amongst themselves.
"Ultimately, somebody has to be the boss."
At first, the episode is not exactly cringey – sure, it is awkward to watch Robyn and Meri
trade jabs over soup and salad, but then comes the icing on the cake: the Big Presentation.
Let's not mince words: this thing is unbelievably difficult to watch. There are multiple instances
of forgotten words and rambling speeches as the wives nervously pitch their jewelry business.
In one scene, Robyn straight-up looks like she might upchuck on the floor
as the investors stare, slack-jawed and silent.
"When I think of our customer — sorry."
If you have any sort of fear of public speaking, avoid this episode at all costs.
There's a lot going on in Season 11, Episode 6, which features Janelle and Kody Brown's daughter,
Maddie Brown, tying the knot. The day starts off with the family sharing memories,
but they are not exactly sweet ones. For starters, a whole section of the episode
is dedicated to the wives describing how much their own weddings sucked. These are
the moments in this show that show us just why Maddie, along with the rest of
her siblings, are refusing plural marriage, according to Us Weekly.
Despite this weird start, the cringiest part of the day still manages to be Kody.
Kody is so enamored with the groom, Caleb Brush, that he seems to think it is his own wedding day,
which is unsurprising given that he's had so many wedding days they've probably started to
run together. At first, he wants to knight the groom during the ceremony, a task which
is thankfully taken over by Caleb's dad. When the ceremony is handed back to Kody, though,
he tells Caleb that although he has just been knighted, Kody is about to make him "the king."
"Caleb, your father has just knighted you. Now I'm going to make you the king."
If we were Maddie, that would be enough for us to wish for a trapdoor to fall through at the altar.
Okay, sure. It's cute that the second
episode of Season 14 shows father-of-eighteen Kody Brown hanging out with his kids. But to do it in
swimwear skimpy enough to warrant a primetime blur when your wives are told to live modestly?
If you are a member of the Brown family, it is probably hard enough having all of your
family's drama exposed to anyone willing to tune in without your dad running around in his
skivvies. Kody takes "airing your dirty laundry" a little too literally as he splashes around in
an incredibly muddy pond in an attempt to hype everyone up about their new home in Flagstaff — a
move that was not popular with most of the family, which makes the scene all the cringier.
"Listen, you can't unsee what you're about to see."
Kody apparently recognized that jumping into a cow manure-filled retention pond in very
little clothing was not the most appealing look, later apologizing on Twitter by telling viewers,
"You are about to see what can't be
unseen. I am so sorry. It isn't a speedo! Just having fun with my kids."
One Twitter user shot back by pointing out Kody's hypocrisy, writing,
"So the women have to cover everything including
their arms but you can go around in your underwear?"
No answer from Kody on that one.
Ah, family bonding. Isn't
it the best? You know, when your mom stands in front of your dad,
his four other wives, and your 17 siblings to confess that she had sex in college,
resulting in the birth of your stepbrother, who is now standing next to you looking like he wants
to crawl into a hole and die. No? Well, if you didn't grow up on the Sister Wives compound,
you might have missed Robyn Brown's insanely awkward purity speech in Season 6, Episode 6.
"I'm actually going to speak to the kids about the biggest mistake of my life,
and I'm actually pretty nervous about it."
There are several grimace-inducing elements at play here: the unnecessary repetition
of the word "purity." The crying. The way Robyn refers to the premarital conception
of her son as "the biggest mistake of [her] life." How almost everyone in
the room is slumped in their chairs as if they've been powered off. Honestly,
if the goal is to scare us out of lust, just thinking about this sermon does the trick.
"Really made me like, wanna not do anything, ever."
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