“They’ve been warming up."
Janelle Brown is opening up about the moment she learned of her son’s death.
The 55-year-old “Sister Wives” star shares six children — sons Logan, Hunter, Garrison and Gabriel, and daughters Savannah and Madison — with her ex-husband Kody Brown.
On March 5, 2024, Janelle Brown took to her Instagram to share the tragic news about her son Garrison.
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“Kody and I are deeply saddened to announce the loss of our beautiful boy Robert Garrison Brown,” she wrote in the caption alongside a photo of her son, who served in the National Guard.
“He was a bright spot in the lives of all who knew him. His loss will leave such a big hole in our lives that it takes our breath away,” she added of Garrison.
That post was uploaded mere hours after Janelle Brown learned that her son had died — and less than one day after she had last spoken to him.
In the newest episode of “Sister Wives,” which aired May 4, Janelle Brown recalled texting her son “all day long” the day before he died as she made a trip from North Carolina to Arizona, where Garrison lived.
"I knew he was struggling," Janelle Brown said of her son’s anxiety and depression, per E! News. "I always just picked up the phone and I always make it a point to just talk to him."
While they didn’t talk about anything in particular that day, Janelle Brown knew her son “needed the connection” — so she gave it to him.
Knowing of her son’s drinking habits, Janelle Brown didn’t panic when her son stopped responding to her texts and figured that he had drunk himself to sleep.
Before going to bed herself that night, Janelle Brown called her two eldest sons and asked them to check in on their brother.
"I said, 'Will you guys see if Garrison will respond to you?' And so they were on it,” Janelle Brown recalled. "They said, 'Mom, we're on it. We'll just kind of check on him and make sure he's OK.’”
The following morning, Janelle Brown woke up to the kind of news no parent should wake up to.
Janelle Brown had Garrison buried on the family’s Wyoming property
On March 5, 2024, Janelle Brown woke up to a phone call from her youngest son Gabriel.
"Gabriel had found him," Janelle Brown said of the phone call. "He's like, 'Mom, he's gone.' I mean, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'He's dead. He killed himself.'"
“I don’t remember the next few minutes,” Janelle Brown added.
While discussing the tragedy with her younger sister Carrie, Janelle Brown confirmed that Garrison started drinking as a way to soothe his anxiety and depression.
But she says his drinking eventually “became the animal he couldn’t get ahold of.”
"I don't know what happened. He was never a drinking kid. He didn't like it, didn't like the taste of it," she explained in the May 4 episode, per People.
"He started to drink during COVID. Something happened in this last year, and it really just got him,” she added.
"We knew he was in a bad place," Janelle Brown continued. "We were doing everything we could for him, but he just, he just couldn't get on top of it."
Despite their past differences, it didn’t take long for Kody and Janelle Brown to agree on what to do with their son’s body.
"Kody and I decided that we would cremate him," Janelle recalled. "I knew that that's what he wanted, so we did that. And that way it gives us the opportunity to have the funeral in a better time of year."
As for where Garrison was laid to rest, the former couple decided to keep their son close to home.
"I remember sitting there with Janelle and I was just going, 'Hey, I really just want to take my boy home,'" Kody Brown recalled in the episode.
"And so I said, 'Let's take him back to Wyoming and let's bury him next to Grandma Cheryl. We just totally agreed that would be the right thing,” he added.
Janelle went on to describe the burial site as “appropriate” — adding that Garrison “loved it there.”
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Garrison’s death came less than two years after Janelle Brown announced her separation from Kody Brown in December 2022. Kody Brown is now only legally married to Robyn Brown.
