Original Coverage & Source Attribution: www.teenvogue.com
“All that anger and all that publicity,” Brown says. “And oftentimes, I even wanted to be angry on camera. I think there were a few times that I probably [was]. Even if as a kid, you want attention, you can look back at it as an adult and be like, ‘that poor kid.’ Also, poor me now.”
Of course, there are times when Brown was glad the cameras were there, like family vacations. She says getting to watch those back is fun. The cameras also captured the family’s hard times. In 2021, Brown’s mom, Christine, divorced her father, starting an almost chain reaction that resulted in three of Kody Brown’s four wives leaving him. Once a polygamy evangelist, Kody Brown now talks about being a “monogamist,” committing to his one wife, Robyn. In Gwendlyn’s view, the divorce was bound to happen, cameras or not.
“I felt like they should have divorced for a while,” she says. “I remember one time as a kid, I saw them arguing, and my first thought was, I hope they get a divorce. What kid thinks that, right?”
In retrospect, Brown thinks her parents made the best decision they could. She doesn’t think growing up on camera is the best idea, but she also enjoyed parts of it. Now, it’s sort of an ebb and flow, her feelings about being filmed continue to evolve.
“I’m growing a bigger dislike for it. And [in the past] it was like, ‘this is my normal,’” she says. “But now it’s like, ‘this does not have to be my normal,’ and it’s weird.”
