After Sunday night’s episode of Sister Wives, TLC will be flipping the polygamy script as they premiere Brother Husbands featuring wife Amanda Liston, her two husbands Chad Ferris and Jeremy Johnston, and their five children — which includes one-year-old triplets!
The network has been promoting the one-hour special with text graphics during its programming, but a Google search turns up nothing other than this brief episode description:
Amanda has a very full love life with not one, but two husbands, and navigates a polyamorous relationship with both of them and their five children.
I did some sleuthing and uncovered the family to be featured on the show, one of which is no stranger to being on the small screen!
Meet Amanda, Chad (above right) and Jeremy. The older children in the photo are Atreyu (7) and Cassian (5), who are the birth sons of Chad and Amanda. The three infants are the triplet sisters Sparrow, Lilith, and Eve. Their birth father is Jeremy.
As you might have guessed from the ages of their kids, Amanda and Chad were a couple first. They’ve been married more than eight years and officially tied the knot on September 13, 2008. Here’s a photo of the two from their wedding day, which would have made a great album cover if they were musicians:
UPDATE – The Ashley’s Reality Roundup apparently has a better MTV reality show memory than I do because she remembered Amanda and Chad from their appearance on Engaged and Underage back in 2008. The show reportedly included the couple’s wedding. There was no mention by either spouse at the time that there might possibly be an additional spouse at some point.
I can’t tell for sure, but it appears as though Jeremy joined the family some time around 2013-2014. Soon Amanda was pregnant (three times at once!) and she delivered their triplets in December of 2015.
I should point out: viewers of Sister Wives who stay tuned for Brother Husbands may be in for quite the culture shock. Whereas Kody and his sister wives are a bit conservative and old fashioned in their lifestyles, Amanda and the boys embrace modernity — with a passion!
Judging from their very entertaining (and very aesthetically pleasing) social media pages, the trio are essentially millennial hipsters living in the Los Angeles area who seem to share a passion for geeky things like comic books, sci-fi/fantasy, and cosplay. Amanda is such the geek that she was cast as a contestant on the TBS reality competition series King of the Nerds! Here she is explaining her admiration for Catwoman as she reveals she loves to cosplay, makes clothes, and runs a book blog:
In addition to being a super geek for comic books, Star Wars, etc., first husband (I’m not sure if that terminology is acceptable?) Chad is a stylist at the high end LuxeLab Salon in Pasadena.
Meanwhile, Jeremy seems to be the least outwardly geeky of the entire family, with the exception of the triplets. That being said, he is part of the triad. Here he is cosplaying Star Wars with wife Amanda at San Diego Comic-Con:
Yes, those are the triplets you see making a mini-Death Star out of Amanda’s belly. 🙂
Another contrast to Kody and his Sister Wives co-stars is the fact that the Brother Husbands triad is already living openly as a polyamorous/polygamous trio. (I’m not sure yet what the proper terminology is, but I assume given the show’s title that it is OK to call them polygamists. It could be that it would be more appropriate to refer to them as committed non-monogamists or something along those lines — hopefully the special will provide clarifcatioon on what they prefer.)
What’s really refreshing about Amanda, Chad, and Jeremy is that their friends and family not only seem to embrace their relationships, but are often envious! Of course, they are pretty hard to compete with on a social media platform like Instagram:
Here’s an example from an Instagram post shared by Chad after attending an event (I’m not sure what the event was) in September of 2015 while Amanda was pregnant with the triplets:
We had the best weekend. Celebrating new female lives, and a growing unconventional family that has been welcomed, loved and supported on every level by such a diverse array of beautiful humans both on the inside and out. The high I got from the positivity that was poured out so graciously to our family this weekend will be something that I think has truly changed me. Thank you for sharing in our journey!! We love you all so much.
I have to confess that I have a little crush on the whole family! I’m also excited to see the show because I’m curious to learn more about their day-to-day personal lives: Do all the parents and children live in the same house? What kind of legal issues do they face trying to legitimize both marriages in the eyes of the law? Do the dads have two separate bedrooms? Are Chad and Jeremy bisexual? If Amanda is Princess Leia, who gets to be Han Solo? SOOOOOO many questions! I suppose we will all have to wait to find out the answers until the one-hour Brother Husbands special premieres on TLC this Sunday night at 10/9c.
