'Sister Wives' Star Janelle Brown Fears for Her Sons' Mental Health After Their Feud With Kody

Janelle Brown is concerned for her boys as they remain estranged from their father, Kody.

Garrison, 25, and Gabriel, 21, had a fallout with the Brown family patriarch during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kody demanded his wives and their respective children follow a strict set of rules that extended well beyond the CDC's guidelines in order for him to be around them.

When Janelle and Christine chose not to enforce them, Kody opted to spend a majority of his time in lockdown with his fourth wife, Robyn, 44, and their shared kids, leaving Gabe and Garrison feeling abandoned.

"Me and Garrison are at odds with my dad, because when we expressed our discontent at how things were going with COVID, I was met with just a wall," Gabe explained on the Sunday, October 8, episode of Sister Wives. "And there was no line of dialogue. I think that that is what really drove the wedge between us."

Although Kody also distanced himself from Christine and their kids during the pandemic due to their differences on which safety measures they should be taking, the 52-year-old admitted that it didn't hit her offspring as hard as it did Janelle's children.

“My kids are more used to Kody not being in their life. He just wasn’t around as much," she said in a confessional. "But he has been around Janelle’s kids. For them, this is just a lot more devastating than it has been for my kids."

In a 2022 episode of the hit TLC show, Gabriel said he believed Kody was just "tired of putting effort into maintaining something with me," further noting that he didn't "really understand" what he "did wrong" in his father's eyes.

However, Kody later accused his son of "gaslighting him" because he "knew what the rules were" during the pandemic.

The father-of-18 brought up his strained relationships with several of his older children in a recent interview, partially blaming the shift in power dynamics on their broken bonds.

"Your relationship with your 10-year-old or your five-year-old or your babies is very different than the relationship you have with a 15-year-old, a 20-year-old, and a 25 and a 30-year-old. It's very different," he pointed out. "I didn't have any power in my household to say, ‘These are the rules.’"

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Despite their issues, Kody expressed hope for "moving forward" and "healing" his relationships with his kids.

"This is a story about forgiveness," he continued. "Forgiveness and finding hope and joy after relationships have been severed from the way that's the norm."