We’ve all watched for years as Robyn Brown hasn’t contributed to the Brown family financially. Literally, while all the other wives and Kody had jobs, she just lived off of their salaries…

And it only gets weirder when you remember that even before she joined the Brown family, she didn’t have a job. So how was she getting by? Who was paying her bills while she was trying to support three kids?

Well, the answer will really surprise you…

Robyn and Kody got spiritually married in 2010, which was also the first year that Sister Wives aired on TLC. I’m sure a lot of people are already aware of how the Browns were already struggling financially when Robyn entered the family.

I mean, just between 2005 and 2010, Meri, Christine, and Janelle had each filed for bankruptcy. Not to mention that Kody’s earnings from working as a salesman at a sign shop were incredibly inconsistent.  

Obviously, Robyn and her three kids entering the picture only made the family’s budget even tighter. In early episodes of Sister Wives, Kody and Janelle even brought up concerns about how they were going to afford the addition of four more people,

But at the time, the plan was for Robyn to start working after she moved closer, so she’d be able to help with groceries and bills. Clearly, that didn’t go according to plan… 

Robyn Never Worked Once She Joined the Brown Family

We all know by now that Robyn pretty much never worked once she joined the Brown family. This has been a hot topic with viewers for a long time. A lot of people have been wondering how Robyn was able to financially support herself and her children before Kody and the other wives started helping her.

Robyn has had a lot of financial assistance throughout her life from the people closest to her — and one of the first examples of this was her first marriage.

She got married in 1999 to David Preston Jessop, who’s mainly referred to as Preston. Within a few short years, Robyn was raising three kids, while Preston reportedly owned an HVAC company and also worked as a contractor.

After eight years, their marriage ended in an absolutely insane way. According to the divorce documents that were obtained by In Touch, it was actually Preston who filed for divorce from Robyn in 2007.

But I think it’s safe to say that neither of them was happy in the marriage — at least based on the insinuations and claims that Robyn has made about him since. Their split was apparently finalized in 2009, and the amount of debt that Robyn was in because of the divorce was outrageous.

Robyn has mentioned this debt on Sister Wives a couple of times, and her side of the story is crazy. She claimed that she agreed to take on almost all of the debt from her marriage just to keep the peace with Preston during the divorce.  

So, when she joined the Brown family, she had a whopping $32,400 in credit card debt. And based on the amount of money Robyn was supposedly bringing in, her financial situation was extremely troubling. Preston had been ordered to pay Robyn $159 a month in child support.

Even before the payments stopped being regular a few years later, that’s not nearly enough to fully support four people. Clearly, there had to have been another way that Robyn provided for her family as a single mom.

I’m actually very surprised at how much of her previous life and work history has stayed out of the public eye for so many years.

There have been a lot of speculations that Robyn was working as a receptionist at an assisted living facility at one point, but that’s never been confirmed.

Robyn Was Struggling When She Met Kody

Apparently, Robyn was barely scraping by when she first met Kody, but thankfully, she had some help. What she wrote in one part of the book Becoming Sister Wives was honestly so eye-opening.

Robyn didn’t give a ton of insight into her finances in the family’s book that was published in 2012, but she and Kody both dropped a few clues. When they were courting, Robyn lived 300 miles from the Brown family, so obviously, they would drive to visit each other.

I’m pretty sure that most of the time, Kody was the one traveling. According to Becoming Sister Wives, Robyn couldn’t afford to pay for the gas her van would need to make the nearly five-hour drive to Lehi.

She explained that she almost didn’t even go to meet Kody and the rest of the Brown family in the first place because of how rough her money situation was. But it turns out that someone in Robyn’s family came through for her in an unbelievable way…

After her cousin Reba decided to pay for the gas Robyn needed to make the trip, the rest was history. That said, so much of Robyn’s early life, especially her employment background, is still so mysterious.

If Robyn moved out of the trailer she shared with Preston before their divorce was finalized, she had at least a year when she was financially responsible for herself and her kids. Even if the theory about her working as a receptionist is true, I’m sure that that income alone wasn’t able to cover everything.

Many people have speculated about how Robyn made ends meet, and what they’ve come up with is so intriguing. I feel like the majority of people are in agreement that she must have relied a lot on her family for financial help — and not just for gas money.

It actually seems like she’s been in this kind of pattern for most of her life, if the speculations about her past are at all accurate. Allegedly, Robyn and her kids moved from Montana to St. George, Utah to be closer to family after her divorce.

It’s been heavily speculated that she stayed with her mom and stepdad initially. Several months later, they supposedly set her up in one of their rentals, which is the condo we briefly saw her living in during season one. After that, Robyn soon became one of Kody’s wives, and I think almost everyone is aware that her debt was paid off by her new family.

But aside from her parents and the Brown family, she may have been relying on another family’s money in her previous life. Just recently, some astonishing claims have been made about Robyn’s other alleged source of financial support, and I’m seriously stunned.

Robyn Brown’s Shocking Spending Problem

Someone on Reddit under the username ‘NoPop1111’ has claimed to be the cousin of not only Robyn’s ex-husband, but Christine Brown as well. Apparently, Preston’s mom is Diane Allred Jessop, who just so happens to be the aunt of Christine’s dad, Rex Allred.

Obviously, we don’t know if the Reddit insider really is who they say they are, but I have to admit, their identity does seem to make sense.

And lately, they’ve been revealing some details about Robyn’s life before Sister Wives that sound insanely shocking. First off, the source explained that the threat of being sued by Robyn was a genuine fear for a lot of Preston’s family members, but all of that is now apparently starting to change.

Several alleged friends and family members have come forward recently with incredibly similar stories of what Robyn’s past was really like. And now that more and more people have been speaking up, they’re less worried about being targeted by a lawsuit, apparently.

According to the Reddit source, basically everything that’s been reported lately about Robyn’s financial past has been surprisingly accurate.

One of the craziest allegations that people have been repeatedly making is that Robyn’s credit card debt was actually her own, not Preston’s. They claim that she had a huge shopping problem and spent way more than she and Preston could pay.

The Reddit insider revealed that Preston might not have been the right guy for Robyn, but she didn’t exactly make the marriage easy, either.

I guess at one point, Robyn was allegedly hiding her purchases in a backyard shed so that her spending problem would stay a secret. Supposedly, his nieces would regularly babysit for Robyn while she went shopping. And, as bizarre as it sounds, they were reportedly paid for babysitting with clothes that Robyn had just purchased.

It also sounds like the financial struggles that came from Robyn impacted Preston’s family in a startling way. According to the Reddit insider, everything that was summed up in recent claims from the YouTube channel Without A Crystal Ball is correct.

Again, we don’t have confirmation about this, unfortunately, but if it’s true, I can’t believe how serious this was. Several sources claiming to be close to the Jessop and Allred families revealed that before Robyn and Preston divorced, they were planning on buying a house.

However, once Preston realized how much credit card debt Robyn had racked up, his family offered to help. Allegedly, they bailed out Preston and Robyn by loaning them tens of thousands of dollars to cover the credit card bills.

But what supposedly happened next is jaw-dropping. Reportedly, Robyn’s shopping habits were so problematic that she spent the money from Preston’s family on more purchases instead of paying off her debt. The sources involved also claimed that this was one of the main reasons why Preston wanted to file for divorce.

Robyn Is Used to Relying On Financial Help

I honestly don’t know what to make of these allegations, but they could explain some unanswered questions about Robyn’s previous life… Either way, it’s clear that Robyn has relied on financial help from others quite a few different times in her life, even after her drama with Preston. All without having to work much at all… 

That wouldn’t even be a bad thing in certain circumstances, but she hasn’t really seemed willing to contribute even when that’s been expected. I am in no way trying to say that stay-at-home-parents aren’t working, but we all know that Robyn has had either live-in babysitters or nannies for years.

It just seems so strange that Robyn seemingly never contributed financially to the Brown family, despite initially saying that she would get a job.

She still had nice homes, nannies, and was able to live above her means because of the help she was getting from the other wives.