According to Paedon Brown, Kody and Christine Brown's son, Meri Brown wasn't the best stepmother. In a YouTube Live, Paedon accused his father's first wife (now ex-wife) of being abusive toward him and some of his other siblings. "Meri was not nice. Abrasive is not enough of a word to explain what Meri was to a few of us children specifically," he stated, as per People. Paedon added that Meri would pass the point of verbal abuse at times, hinting at possible physical mistreatment of her stepchildren. He didn't, however, go into any details and has left it at that since then.

Regardless, this isn't the first time one of the Brown kids has stepped up and pointed fingers at Meri. Maddie Brown, Kody and Janelle Brown's daughter, apparently called Meri "abusive" and a "monster" in a Twitter feud in 2019, Soap Dirt reported. While she didn't tag or directly mention Meri, she did say it was someone she lived with as a child. "There is nothing like dealing with an abusive human your whole life and finally having the freedom to not have anything to do with her," Maddie tweeted. Meri later didn't attend any of Maddie's two births, and the two stopped following each other on social media, as per The U.S. Sun.

Gwendlyn Brown, Paedon's biological sister, also confirmed that Meri was sometimes abusive to them as children. According to InTouch Weekly, Christine and Kody's daughter took to her Patreon to back her brother's claim by saying she saw Meri get physical with her sister, Mykelti Brown, once.