‘Sister Wives’ exclusive: How Janelle Brown chose where to bury her late son Garrison
When it came time for Janelle and Kody Brown to select a final resting place for their late son Garrison Brown, it didn’t take long for them to reach an agreement.
In TODAY.com’s exclusive clip from this week’s episode of “Sister Wives,” Janelle Brown opens up about the decision to bring her son’s ashes to Wyoming.
“The Browns have deep roots in Wyoming. Both Kody’s dad and my mom are buried there, and I want to bury Garrison next to my mom,” she says.
The mother of six goes on to explain why Wyoming held a special place in Garrison Brown’s heart.
“He was very much shaped by his experiences. You know, going for the summer, working there on the ranch,” she says.
Maddie Brown Brush, the daughter of Janelle and Kody Brown, then appears and elaborates on the significance the location has for her family, who has lived in several states.
“Wyoming is probably the closest place we have to roots. It’s home. We used to go every summer and it was just like, you went to the ranch to learn how to work,” she said.
Despite their separation and rocky dynamic, Janelle and Kody agreed that it was the best decision to bury their son’s ashes close to family.
“You know, Kody would say, ‘I just want to take him home.’ And I’m like, ‘OK, I get that,’” she says in the clip.
The May 4 episode of “Sister Wives” followed the Brown family in the days following the loss of Garrison Brown, who died by suicide at the age of 25 in March 2024.
During the episode, Kody Brown opened up about his desire to lay his son to rest in Wyoming.
“I remember sitting there with Janelle and I was just going, ‘Hey, I really just want to take my boy home.’ And so I said, ‘Let’s take him back to Wyoming and let’s bury him next to grandma Sheryl,” he said during a confessional interview. “We just totally agreed that would be the right thing.”
In her own interview, Janelle Brown elaborated on her decision to cremate her son, saying she knew “that’s what he wanted.”
“And that way it gives us the opportunity to have the funeral in a better time of year. We want to bury him in Wyoming. It’s where our our family, a lot of our family, is buried. He loved it there, so it felt appropriate. So we can wait ‘til the summer when everybody can be there and we can really celebrate him properly,” she said.
The clip doesn’t address the family history directly, but Janelle Brown’s mom, Sheryl Usher, married Kody Brown’s father, William Winn Brown.
Janelle Brown has spoken about their tangled roots previously on “Sister Wives,” explaining that her mother met William Winn Brown first while trying to prevent her daughter from joining a polygamist marriage.
Instead, she came to embrace polygamy herself, marrying Kody Brown’s father, who had multiple wives.
Sheryl Usher was the only member of Janelle Brown’s family at her wedding to Kody Brown.
“My mom was at the wedding because she came to save me from the polygamists and ended up marrying Kody’s dad three months before we got married,” Janelle Brown said on the show. “So my mom was obviously OK with it. But the rest of my family was really not OK with it. So they didn’t come.”