This week’s episode of Sister Wives was a difficult one to watch. Though Kody and Janelle Brown’s son Garrison died by suicide in March 2024, the episode that aired this week is the one filmed during that time, more than a year later. As everyone in the family shared their reactions to the tragic news that their son and brother was gone, Kody admitted that he never had the chance to “make things right” in his fractured relationship with his son before his death.
Kody opened up to Robyn about his relationship with Garrison.
During the episode, Kody was talking to wife Robyn about Garrison’s death, calling him by his first name, Robert, and calling the situation “heartbreaking.”
“Rob and I didn’t get a chance to really just make things right, just not being able to say goodbye,” he said in the episode. “I just don’t know what to do with his death because it’s like I’ve got to do something different because I could have had more time with him, and I thought there would be more time. Everybody thinks they got more time.”
He admitted the ‘what-ifs’ bothered him.
Kody and several of his children have been feuding for years, especially after Christine and Janelle decided to leave the family. That included Garrison, and as he told Robyn during their conversation, he couldn’t help but go over the “what-ifs” in his mind.
“What if I’d have called him? What if I’d have been in touch more? What if we’d have gone done more? What if, what if, what if?” he shared. “It still makes me sad. It still makes me wonder if something could have been done. It’s the what-ifs. The what could have been. I think they just helped the mourning process.”
Janelle said Garrison had changed in the final year of his life.
Janelle told the TLC cameras that though Garrison had never been a “drinking kid,” that changed during the COVID pandemic. “Something happened in this last year, and it really just got him,” she said, adding that their family had given him “all the love, all the support, all the help, all the resources.”
“I don’t know what happened that night he did that because he’s had other nights like this where he would drink and then pass out, and he would go kind of radio silent, but he’d be back in the morning,” she explained. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened this time.”
Garrison was found dead at the age of 25 in March 2025.
In the same episode, Janelle said in a confessional interview that she and Garrison had a routine of talking several times a day, and the day he died was no different. Janelle said that because she knew her son was “struggling,” she “always just picked up the phone and I always make it a point to just talk to him.”
Eventually, he stopped texting her, so she asked her other sons to check on him, and that’s how she found out later that evening that Garrison was dead.
After Garrison’s death, an autopsy later revealed that he had died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
Note: If you or any of your loved ones are struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can always reach out to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling 988. They are available 24/7 by phone or online chat.
