Maddie Brown’s Heartbreaking Confession: How Her Family Struggled to Get By!

Maddie Brown, daughter of Kody and ex-wife Janelle Brown, is recalling her family’s past financial state, claiming the Brown family was “very poor” before nabbing the TLC series Sister Wives in 2010.

Maddie, who is estranged from Kody, opened up about her family’s past money troubles on this week’s episode of her Authentic Society podcast, telling listeners that, despite her dad earning “decent money” at the time, the family struggled financially. 

“Before the show, we were very poor,” Maddie said. “I think my dad made decent money, but we had, like, 15 kids.” 

As fans of ‘Sister Wives’ know, when the Brown family made its TV debut in 2010, Kody was married to Meri, Janelle and Christine Brown– the latter of whom was pregnant at the time with daughter Truely. At the beginning of Season 1, viewers watched as Kody and his wives invited single-mom-of-three Robyn Brown into the family, with the two ultimately marrying and later having two children of their own. As of 2023, Robyn is Kody’s only remaining wife. 

On this week’s podcast episode, Maddie said she believes people inherit a lot of their thoughts on money from their parents, and that only after marrying husband Caleb Brush did she begin to see the error of her parents’ ways. 

“My dad always chose the get-rich-quick scheme, almost always,” Maddie recalled. “And that was something that was such a foreign thought to Caleb. And I remember explaining some ideas to him and he’s like, ‘No, no.’” 

Maddie said that she and Caleb work to “build wealth” and “build stability” with their finances– things she never witnessed her own parents do. 

“ … when we got our tax returns when I was younger, immediately my parents immediately spent it on something,” she said. “And Caleb’s family were both educated and they did not [spend it], they saved it. They saved every penny that they could.” 

Maddie said that, like her own family, Caleb’s family was “broke,” but she claims her in-laws were “debt-phobic” and “did as much as they could” to save what they had. 

“ … So it was very different than my parents,” she added. 

Maddie said that, while there were people in the church that she and her family attended who were “massively rich,” many were commercial contractors, which allowed those individuals to build their family homes “for super cheap.” Meanwhile, Kody always worked in “sign sales,” while his wives worked various jobs over the years and Janelle specifically often worked for the state.  

Maddie confirmed to her co-host that Janelle being employed by the state came with “a lot of benefits,” though she said there were times when she and her siblings were without health insurance, specifically back when Janelle was in between jobs after obtaining her college degree. 

“ … [My mom] had just left the temp agency and started with the state and my appendix ruptured and it was an emergency surgery,” Maddie recalled. “So, it wasn’t on anybody’s insurance, so my mom had to pay that off for a while.” 

As The Ashley previously told you, Christine revealed in 2020 that a 2014 hospital visit for Truely left her with $450,000 in medical bills due to Kody not having health insurance for his daughter at the time. The news of Christine’s staggering medical debt came just months after the mom of six told fans she needed to raise $50,000 for a down payment on her daughter’s Ysabel‘s spine surgery.

Maddie explained that while there was insurance for her family growing up, it was inconsistent.  

Even after her family began appearing on ‘Sister Wives,’ Maddie said her parents continued to pursue other ways of making money. 

“So, my dad was a sign salesman, but he was always doing something, even after the show started,” she said. “They did a lot of investments with people and stuff like that and I remember just being like, ‘interesting.’” 

Maddie– who has a growing family of her own– gave her mom credit for being “relatively good with money,” while also crediting the good and bad parts of her childhood for shaping who she is as an adult. 

“It made me the parent I am today,” she said.

Maddie is not the first of Kody’s children to speak out about his poor financial decisions. Back in 2023, his daughter Gwendlyn— whom he shares with Christine— spoke out about Kody and Robyn’s habit of spending a ton of money.

“I think that my dad and Robyn have a terrible habit of, like, spending very crazy and not within their means at all,” Gwendlyn said in a video posted to her YouTube channel.

During the same video, Gwendlyn stated that the financial situations of Janelle, Meri and Christine have probably improved since they separated from Kody.

“They’ll probably be a lot better off now that they’re no longer with him, and they’re no longer financially tied to him because they still make a lot of money separately,” she said. (Christine, Janelle and Meri are all heavily involved in several multi-level marketing companies, including Plexus and Lularoe. All three women reportedly bring in sizable incomes from their ventures outside the show.)

New episodes of ‘Sister Wives’ air Sundays on TLC.