“Legalize Polygamy?” — Janelle Brown’s Shocking Take: “Make It Legal, and It Would Go Away”

Of all the people you’d expect to say polygamy should be LEGALIZED, Janelle Brown is dead last on the list. She spent nearly three decades in a plural marriage that ended in heartbreak — yet in a new podcast conversation, she just argued the law should stop trying to ban the lifestyle. Her reason? Legalization might be exactly what makes it disappear.

Photo: organixmag.com — a rare throwback: a young Kody Brown with Janelle and Meri in the early days of their plural marriage

The Statement Nobody Saw Coming

On a recent appearance on the Get Obsessed with Julie Lokun podcast, Janelle recalled how “really scary” it was when the family went public — not sleeping for weeks before the Sister Wives premiere, worried about the law, even keeping a note at work about what should happen to her children if authorities came for her.

Then the question: after everything, does she still believe in the lifestyle? Janelle said people who feel a “calling” to plural marriage should follow it — though she no longer feels that calling herself. Then she went further than anyone expected.

“It Would Go Away”: Her Surprising Logic

Janelle’s argument, according to reports: authorities spent forever trying to jail people and curtail the practice, and it never worked — so just make it legal. The kicker: “I don’t think you’d see many people marrying plurally anymore! I feel like if you legalized it, it would go away.”

Her logic? Once plural marriages carried real legal and financial responsibilities — multiple wives with enforceable claims — the lifestyle would lose its appeal for a lot of men, fast. She compared it to men with children by multiple women outside marriage — “baby mamas,” as she put it — arguing women in both situations deserve protection. “Empower the women and give them a choice! And I think a lot of that would solve itself,” she said.

Photo: Screen Rant — Janelle argues women in plural marriages deserve legal and financial protections

Why This Is Deeply Personal for Janelle

This isn’t abstract philosophy — it’s the wound talking. Unlike Robyn, Janelle was only ever spiritually married to Kody, so there was no divorce settlement. According to reports, she has voiced concerns about the money she poured into the family’s shared Flagstaff property with no legal paper trail to get it back.

That’s the vulnerability she wants the next woman to avoid. Strip away the lifestyle debate and her message is simple: protect the women, or the system protects nobody.

Photo: EntertainmentNow — Janelle, smiling through her new chapter; she says she no longer feels the “calling” to plural marriage herself

She Hasn’t Turned Her Back on the Belief — Just on Kody

Make no mistake: Janelle isn’t nostalgic about her own marriage. According to reports, Kody started out as a “wonderful, hands-on dad” before the “weird rules” during COVID, the “insistence on obedience and loyalty” instead of respect and love, and priorities that drifted toward Robyn. “I just didn’t even hardly recognize the guy, really, that I left and finally ended the marriage with, compared to who he was before.”

She stayed to hold the family together for her kids — and walked away only once confident they’d thrive. That’s the same woman now telling lawmakers: stop jailing polygamists, start empowering their wives. Not an endorsement — a blueprint for surviving the lifestyle.

Fans Are Split: Team “Legalize It” vs. Team “Never Again”

Team “Legalize It” says Janelle is being brutally pragmatic: bans never stopped polygamy, they just drove it underground where women had zero protection. If legalization means alimony, child support and property rights for sister wives — plus fewer men willing to sign up for the bill — that’s a win.

Team “Never Again” hears something different: after nearly 30 years of heartbreak, Janelle defending the system in any form feels like a betrayal. Legalizing polygamy, they argue, doesn’t dismantle it — it normalizes it.

So where do you land? Is this the most honest thing anyone in this family has said about the lifestyle — or is the woman who escaped it the last person who should be redesigning it? Drop your vote: Team “Legalize It” or Team “Never Again”?