During the tell-all special of TLC's "Sister Wives," the polygamous Brown family sat down with NBC News national correspondent Tamron Hall to discuss everything that happened during the last season, from Janelle's daughter Maddie's engagement to Kody's legal adoption of Robyn's three children from her previous marriage. But the most shocking moment came when Meri, the first of Kody's four wives, opened up about the catfishing scandal that threatened to tear her family apart.
Earlier this year, Meri revealed that she was catfished into an online relationship with a woman who pretended to be a man named "Sam," as previously reported by HNGN. Meri said she fell into the situation during a time where she felt particularly vulnerable, while in the middle of legally divorcing her husband Kody so that he could marry his fourth wife Robyn and legally adopt her children.
During the last half of the two-hour special, Meri spoke candidly about her experience with "Sam" and explained that she met him via social media. They began emailing, text messaging and calling each other on the phone.
"He started saying all the right things," Meri explained. "He started saying very flattering comments and expressing affection and love to me and I fell for it. I started to love who he was portraying himself to be."
But Meri said that there were "cracks" in his story very early on and "Sam" would send her pictures of an actor and claimed that he was the man in the photo. But she also revealed that "Sam" had a female friend who was "technologically savvy" and "Sam" would threaten Meri, telling her that the friend could hack her and her family's phones and technological devices. Meri said that this was why she distanced herself from her family.
"I was scared of what they could do because they were showing it," Meri said. "I felt very threatened by them."
Meri said that she never did meet "Sam," but she did meet the female friend. During the meeting, the woman placed her phone on Meri's phone and told her that she could extract all the information from her cell phone that way.
She also detailed two very specific instances that made her feel afraid of them. Once was when she was out at a local store and "Sam" called her on her cell phone to tell her that he knew her exact location. Another time, "Sam" had gotten upset with Meri and hung up the phone, and his female friend would call and force her to call him and tell him she loved him.
Even though Meri admitted that she was in love with this fictional person, her husband Kody was very understanding throughout the ordeal. He said he doesn't view Meri's online relationship as emotional cheating.
"This is somebody who I see was trying to exploit her, to literally harm our family and find some way to damage our children," Kody said. "So nothing but forgiveness in this case. I see it as a flirt. So what."
Meri agreed, and she said that she knew "Sam" wasn't real and reiterated that she never intended to leave her family for him. She said she knew all along that "Sam" and his friends' goal was to break up the Brown family.
"That's not happening on my watch," Meri said.
