Here's What Kody Brown Wants Viewers To Take Away From Sister Wives - Exclusive
TLC's hit show Sister Wives continues to be must-see television. The window into the plural marriage of Kody Brown and his wives — Meri, Christine, Janelle, and Robyn — is hard to beat, because not only are viewers exposed to the world of polygamous marriages, but are shown just how normal their day-to-day lives are. Sister Wives is on its 10th season, and with all this time has come growth, opportunity, and accountability. But what does the "star" of the show and the man at the center of it all, Kody Brown, want viewers to know about his life?
The List sat down with Kody for an exclusive one-on-one interview to ask the questions that so many of us have been dying to know the answers to. What is life like when the cameras aren't rolling? Is Sister Wives authentic? What lessons or values should viewers take from the show? We needed some clarity, so we went straight to the source.
Kody Brown revealed quite a lot to The List, but so much of what he said got down to the heart of the show — that although his daily life is captured on camera, there are lessons that he hopes the viewers will take with them. Here is the one thing that Kody Brown wants viewers to take away from Sister Wives.
Kody Brown revealed that Sister Wives shows only a limited version of his life
There's only so much that an unscripted reality television program can show viewers, and despite Kody Brown having a specific takeaway that he wants viewers to leave Sister Wives with (more on that later), he did admit to The List that the show only shows a fraction of his daily life. "There's so much limitation on what you're able to see because my life is 365 days a year, and you get to see 12 one-hour episodes," he said. "You're only seeing the experiences being filmed or shot."
Kody explained that while Sister Wives shows a good deal of his life and the behind-the-scenes of his marriages, there are a number of personal experiences that he's had that are "separate from the show." He said that only so much makes it into each episode, and while the show is fairly authentic to his daily life, there are limitations. "The personality of our family and stuff like that, I think still shows. It's not like we're holding back. It's just, you can't be here all the time," he said. "That'd be just overkill anyway."
Viewers will continue to see the Brown family at odds, according to Kody Brown
Like any reality television show, Sister Wives brings out the good, bad, ugly, and beautiful in all the Brown family members. While we might not see the likes of Kim Kardashian hitting her sister over the head with a purse, Sister Wives brings an element of the real world to the camera, and according to Kody Brown, what is captured isn't always life at its easiest.
Calling himself and his four wives the sort of main characters of the show, Kody told The List that while he wants viewers to take away certain lessons and perspectives from the show, he knows that Sister Wives shows every differing opinion between himself and his life partners. "You get some opinions more than others, and this is the interesting thing. There's five of us and then our children, and we don't all see eye-to-eye," Kody told The List. "We're trying to be united as a family, but there's a lot of liberty in this family, a lot of freedom."
Kody further explained that he and his family are kinds of "social anarchists," that nobody truly obeys the rules, said or unsaid. "These are relationships, and so you have to be sensitive to how you are with each other," Kody said. "It's a challenge."
Kody Brown wants viewers to know that plural marriages are a choice, not a burden
If Sister Wives proves anything to its viewers, it's that — no matter if you're in a single marriage, a plural one, you're single, or whatever the case may be — life pretty much looks the same. Despite more marriages and more people around, life is just as complicated for Kody Brown and his family as it is for your own, and he told The List that he wants viewers to know that not only does life carry on as normal in a plural marriage, but that all of his marriages are by choice.
"Everybody is in this relationship by choice. They can be in it or out of it by choice. That's the only message. It's the same message we always had from the beginning," Kody told The List. "We're a fairly normal family with our normal struggles, and we just have multipliers." Kody said that for as long as Sister Wives is on the air, viewers will see just how much the Brown family is not your typical polygamous situation — there is freedom of choice, movement, and people can choose whether they want to be in or out.
"[People will] have criticism for what I do, for my behavior, maybe. But they won't be able to criticize the lifestyle regarding it being a prison or an oppressing society of sorts," Kody said.
Sister Wives airs Sunday nights at 10 p.m. ET/PT on TLC.