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Mykelti Brown has revealed just how much she earned from her time on the popular reality series, Sister Wives, and it’s far less than one might expect.
Mykelti Brown says ‘Sister Wives’ had a huge effect on her life
As one of the 18 children of Kody Brown, Mykelti played a significant role in the show that followed her polygamous family. Her participation in the series “hugely affected” her life, she shared during a recent episode of the Cults to Consciousness podcast.
“From the start of filming, I’ve been featured in almost every episode,” Mykelti explained. “The most recent season was different. I wasn’t as present this time around.”
Since Sister Wives first aired, Mykelti, now 29, has had much of her life unfold before the camera, beginning when she was just a teenager.
“Now, I have three children, and I filmed the birth of each one,” she recounted. “While the actual footage of my body isn’t shown, I gave birth on camera. I got married on camera, moved to North Carolina on camera, and even courted my husband on camera. Every major event was captured.”
“I have three kids now. I filmed the births of all three kids. The actual footage of my body you don’t see, you know … but I gave birth on camera, I got married on camera. I move to North Carolina on camera. Everything. I courted my husband on camera. All these events,” she said.
The experience of being a reality TV personality “impacted my life hugely,” she added. She’s had to navigate life in the public eye and been forced to establish boundaries between the show and some aspects of her life, especially her career.
“One of this things, I will say, is anytime I need to go get a job … in my interview and on my resume and stuff, I do put that my previous work is with Sister Wives. Because that is like, I’ve been working here for 15 years,” she said.
Employers are often skittish about the possibility of extra attention. She had to “promise that the show wouldn’t show up at my work and film. That was a big thing,” she said, adding that she keeps the name of her employer private to avoid any extra attention.
Mykelti also opened up about how she and her siblings were paid for being on Sister Wives.
“The way that the pay structure worked for the show is that the show, the network, whoever does the pay structure would pay each individual parent … they were all supposed to get one-fifth, essentially. From that, it came down to the individual household,” she explained.
The Brown kids were generally promised that their college would be paid for and they’d get a car. Once they turned 18, they signed their own contracts with the show, though they were “subcontracted” under their parents. But even then, they weren’t exactly getting rich in exchange for opening up their lives to public scrutiny.
“After I was 18, every time I filmed, I did get money,” Mykelti shared. “I don’t think it was what we deserved. … I think that personally, all my parents were very greedy with their money. Because this is the first time they ever had money, and they were stingy with it.”
“We were compensated, but we were not fairly compensated,” she added.
The exception was “big events.”
“When I gave birth on camera, I got a fat check. And when I had my wedding, I got a fat check,” the mom of three said.
“It paid for the hospital bill. And it paid for my honeymoon, essentially. We did get a nice check for those two big events,” she added.
Now, it seems that Mykelti’s time on Sister Wives has come to an end. Since a new producer changed the focus of the show to concentrate more on Kody and his current and former wives, she hasn’t been asked to film.
“I have not been asked to film in about a year. I haven’t told them no, but they have not requested me,” she said. But new episodes of Sister Wives are in the works.
“They’re still filming,” she said. “Season 21 is probably going to come out this fall.”
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