Janelle Brown is opening up about the time she spent married to Meri Brown‘s brother.
Although the Sister Wives star has been candid about the breakup of her second marriage (to Kody Brown), she rarely, if ever, publicly discusses the time she spent married to Adam Barber. In a new interview for Kate Casey‘s Reality Life podcast, Janelle spoke about her first marriage– and why it failed miserably.
“It was very, very short-lived,” Janelle said, jokingly agreeing that their union probably qualified as a starter marriage.
Janelle and Adam married in the LDS temple in Salt Lake City in 1988. Sadly, the marriage didn’t even last a year.
“I think we might have lived together physically, actually lived together for, like, six months,” Janelle said. “…[It] just didn’t take.”
In the Brown Family’s 2012 book, Becoming Sister Wives, Janelle wrote that she met Adam while she was in high school and that she “was quite taken” by him. Janelle— who was raised in the traditional Mormon religion and later converted to the polygamous Apostolic United Brethren (AUB) faith— stated that Meri’s family was known to be polygamous, but Adam was not interested in the traditional LDS faith or the AUB. Still, Adam converted to LDS for Janelle shortly before they got married.
The marriage was not a happy one, according to Janelle’s description in the book.
“Adam and I had problems right from the start,” she wrote. “We weren’t spiritually, emotionally or romantically compatible. We lived together for only six months before he moved out.”
Adam and Janelle divorced in 1990 and did not have any children together.
In her new interview with Kate Casey, Janelle stated that she was enamored with the polygamous faith, which kept her in contact with Adam’s family even after her divorce.
“I started to investigate the faith. Meri’s mother was a really great resource for me,” Janelle said. “I pretty much made the decision to join the faith….but I was not at Meri’s house all the time. I mean, I was there occasionally. I just happened to be there one time when Kody came. And I already was intrigued with the faith… [it] represented something a little more dynamic or something more robust than the [traditional LDS] faith I had.”
Janelle said that she was also intrigued by Kody, whom Meri was dating at the time.
“When I met Kody just in passing, Meri introduced us,” she said. “I go, ‘Oh,’ I had sort of a feeling. Like, ‘Oh there you are.’”
Janelle said she had boyfriends after her divorce from Adam, and—ironically— she would often double-date with Meri and Kody.
“They were always my token polygamist friends. I was 20,” she said. “It felt cool to have unique friends.”
When Meri and Kody got married, Janelle (and her ex-husband) attended the wedding. Eventually, Janelle lost touch with Adam, but remained close to Meri and Kody, and eventually she suggested to them that she join her family.
Back in June, Meri appeared on the Miss Understood With Rachel Uchitel podcast and discussed the unique situation of having her former sister-in-law becoming her husband’s second wife.
“I think it really weirds a lot of people out and the community’s not that small,” Meri said. “So, it’s kind of weird that that all happened that way… It took a minute for me to get my head wrapped around it. The whole thing was interesting. There was emotions. Let’s just say, there was emotions.”
Adam would go on to marry several times after Janelle and eventually became the father of nine children. Sadly, he died in October 2023 after a battle with cancer. While Janelle did not publicly address her ex’s death, Meri took to Instagram to express her sorrow.
“Just 2 months short of his 55th birthday, we lost him,” Brown wrote, reflecting on their childhood. “I have so many good memories with him over the years, because, siblings. I also have some not so good memories with him through the years, because, siblings… I will move forward living, loving, forgiving, remembering. The relationship I had with him taught me many things, and I have no doubt will continue to teach me things. I remain open to those lessons & look forward to them with anticipation.”
