Nearly three years after Sister Wives star Christine Brown walked away from her polygamist family and husband Kody Brown, she’s making legal moves. One of her children is still a minor, so Christine is suing Kody — not just for custody of their youngest daughter but also for retroactive child support. This could get ugly.
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Christine's youngest daughter moved away from Flagstaff with her in 2021.
When Christine decided to leave Kody and walk away from the polygamist way of life in November 2021, her 14-year-old daughter, Truely, joined her in her move to Utah, and it seems like her strained relationship with her dad hasn’t gotten any better. Now, it looks like Christine is planning to take Kody to court.
Christine filed the lawsuit against Kody on Monday.
In legal documents obtained by In Touch, Christine first asked the court to establish paternity of Truely, as Kody isn’t listed as her father on her birth certificate — likely because Christine and Kody were never legally married.
She is also asking for a domestic relations injunction against Kody that would protect both of them from “harassment, domestic violence, canceling or modifying services, taking the children for nonroutine travel without court orders or permission and demeaning or disparaging the other party,” the news outlet reported.
Christine is also asking to establish child support and custody of Truely.
According to blogger Without a Crystal Ball, Christine is filing for child support now because Utah law dictates that at age 14, children can tell the court which parent they want to live with, which means Truely will be able to tell a judge she wants to live primarily with her mother and the judge may not be able to order any mandatory visitation for Kody.
Once paternity is established, Kody will have to pay up to four years of retroactive child support plus what he will owe for Truely’s care until she turns 18.
Kody and Christine have fought about Truely on the show.
In an episode of Sister Wives that aired last year, Christine said moving away from Kody and only allowing them to see each other only when they visited Flagstaff was her way to “preserve” their good relationship, but Kody disagreed.
“For Christine to think that she’s saving my relationship with Truely by taking her away from me and just ‘preserving’ it — that’s such B.S. rationalization,” Kody said on the show at the time.
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Christine's life is very different than it was just a few years ago.
Since moving to Utah, Christine has continued to stay close with her former sister wife Janelle, who has also left Kody. Christine is now in a new marriage with David Woolley after the couple tied the knot in October 2023.
Robyn is the only wife left standing — and the only one who Kody is legally married to.