“Joke of a Father”: Kody Brown’s Own Kids Deliver Their Verdict — and the Rift With His 18 Children Is Worse Than Anyone Thought

Kody Brown started Sister Wives by telling America his family was special. Sixteen years later, the harshest review of the show is coming from his own kids. According to reports, Janelle Brown estimates Kody is now “alienated from 90 to 95 percent” of his children. One by one, the Brown kids have delivered their verdicts — here is where things stand.

Leon Brown: “He Is a Joke of a Father”

The loudest silence-breaker is Leon Brown, Meri Brown’s only child. After Kody claimed he had reached out to all of his kids “multiple times,” Leon broke their social media hiatus to answer: noting they had not heard from Kody since their brother Garrison’s death in March 2024, Leon wrote, “kody blatantly blew me off at garrison’s funeral. he is a liar. he is a joke of a father. that’s all.” You don’t get a review like that without a very long backstory.

Mykelti Padron: “I’m a Package Deal” — and She’s Taking Kody to Task

For a while, Mykelti Padron was the rare holdout — close to Kody and Robyn and to Christine and Janelle. Not anymore. During a November appearance on the Pop Psych YouTube series, she admitted: “Right now, we don’t have a very deep relationship. We’re not talking, but we’re not not talking.”

But she plans to confront him directly about the other kids — Leon, Aspyn, Paedon, Gwendlyn, Ysabel, Truely, Logan, Maddie, Hunter, Gabriel and Savanah: “You gotta talk to all of us, you can’t just have me… why can’t we all just get together be happy and love each other?”

Maddie Brown Brush says she is ‘open to reconciliation’ — but Kody has to earn it. (The Ashley’s Reality Roundup)

Maddie Brush: “Open to Reconciliation” — With One Big Condition

Maddie Brown Brush is building the opposite of the family she grew up in. Now a mom of four with husband Caleb Brush in North Carolina, Maddie says her children don’t even know their grandfather. “I am open to reconciliation and forgiveness and closure,” she shared — but only with “a pattern of consistency.” As she put it: “Your dad saying lies about you for the entire world to hear teaches it to you REAL QUICK.”

Gabriel Brown walked away from his father over one word: accountability. (Monsters & Critics / TLC)

Gabriel Brown: “Forgive Me for What?”

Once so tight with his dad that he accompanied Kody on business trips, Gabriel Brown drew a hard line after Kody demanded apologies over the COVID-era fallout. “He kept phrasing it like I owed him an apology,” Gabriel told Janelle. “Unless you’re, like, actually ready to have a relationship and fix things, then we’re not going to talk anymore.” Kody texted back: “I forgive you, please forgive me.” Gabriel’s reply: “Forgive me for what?”

The Kids Are Rewriting the Story — Without Kody

Here is the part Kody rarely addresses. As reports have noted, the children raised inside plural marriage have almost unanimously chosen something else: two consistently present parents, shared bedtimes, family dinners without complicated rotations. They aren’t just rejecting Kody — they are rejecting the system he still defends.

Meanwhile Ysabel Brown still holds the door open — barely: “My dad and I aren’t like, close, close, close,” she admitted, “but he’s still my dad, and I love him.” Paedon Brown revealed Kody once tried to get producers to bar the kids from saying anything negative about him in their contracts — Christine shut it down: “You have to earn their love back.” And Gwendlyn Queiroz, who invited Kody to her wedding, called it “very flip-floppy”: “It hurts so much to see him be a good father to others when I didn’t really get that much.”

Sister Wives airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC — notably, without Kody and Robyn this season. So here is the question splitting the fandom: Mykelti says “you gotta talk to ALL of us” — Kody wants it one relationship at a time. Who should take the first step? Drop your verdict in the comments — is there anything Kody could say now that would actually be enough?