‘Sister Wives’ family will reportedly move to Flagstaff from Las Vegas
Jul 16, 2018, 4:10 PM | Updated: Jul 17, 2018, 8:03 am
(Facebook/Sister Wives)
(Facebook/Sister Wives)
PHOENIX — The family at the head of the TLC reality show “Sister Wives” is reportedly moving to Flagstaff, according to People Magazine.
The publication said 49-year-old Kody Brown, his four wives — Christine, Robyn, Janelle and Meri Brown — and their combined 18 children will be moving their home base from Las Vegas to Flagstaff.
“As much as we’ve loved making our home and memories here in Las Vegas, we are excited to embark on a new adventure in Flagstaff, Arizona!” the Brown family said in a statement to the magazine.
“We are looking forward to cooler temperatures, the mountain air, scenic views and the slower lifestyle of Flagstaff.”
The family has been on television since “Sister Wives” premiered in 2010. At the time, the family was living in Lehi, Utah.
Past legal troubles for ‘Sister Wives’ family
The Browns said they fled their longtime home of Lehi, Utah, for Las Vegas in 2011 because local authorities had opened an investigation. The investigation was closed without filing charges, but the family said the threat of prosecution still existed.
Kodi Brown has argued that the situation is legal because he is only legally married to one woman, while the other marriages are “spiritual unions.”
But a seldom used and unique provision of Utah’s law bars married people from living with a second purported “spiritual spouse” even if the man is legally married to just one woman, making it stricter than anti-bigamy laws in other states.
Utah prosecutors said they generally leave polygamists alone but need the ban to pursue polygamists for other crimes such as underage marriage and sexual assault. Only 10 people were charged with violating the law between 2001 and 2011, prosecutors say.
But the Browns argued the Utah law has a chilling effect by sending law-abiding plural families into hiding because of fear of prosecution and even took the law to court.
The U.S. Supreme Court said last year that it would not hear an appeal from the family on TV’s “Sister Wives” challenging Utah’s law banning polygamy, ending the family’s long legal fight to overturn the law.
About 30,000 polygamists live in Utah, according to court documents. A polygamous community on the Utah-Arizona border has a population of 8,000 people.
The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abandoned the practice in 1890 and strictly prohibits it today.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
