It seems that appearing on reality television might not be good for polygamous relationships. Seeking Sister Wife Season 1 star Drew Briney may be following in Sister Wives star Kody Brown’s footsteps with the Briney harem potentially shrinking to just one woman.
Viewers may recall that lawyer-turned-aspiring-sci-fi-writer Drew Briney had three wives when the family made their TLC debut in January of 2017. April was his first wife, Auralee was his second, and Angela was his third. He had six children with each of his first two wives, and Angela was pregnant with her first when filming began.
Here is the Briney family bio from our initial post about Seeking Sister Wife prior to the series premiere:
Drew, April, Auralee, and Angela Briney learn that adding a new family member can cause a lot of turmoil in the plural lifestyle. After a two-week courtship, Drew Briney recently married his third wife Angela. Now he and his three wives–along with their 15 children–are all moving into the same house together.
April is Drew’s first and legal wife, and she has no qualms exercising control over the other wives. And although April and Auralee have known each other for years, they don’t always see eye to eye. Angela–the newest wife–had trouble conceiving for 20 years, but is now pregnant just months after joining the family!
While April and Auralee are excited to love Angela, they hardly know her. All three women are trying to establish their new normal, but it is a bumpy ride.
April Briney left Drew Briney
In May of 2018, first wife April packed up her six children and told the rest of the family they were headed out for a hike near their Oregon home. Instead, April took them all back to Utah. “She never came back,” Angela revealed. “Nor would she accept any communication for the first month or so.”
Drew filed for divorce in Oregon on June 1 of 2018. In Touch reported that the divorce was finalized on June 28, but Oregon court records indicate that the case was dismissed on that date. The docket entry includes just the comment: “Declining Jurisdiction w/ 10 Day Leave.” I assume that means there was a jurisdiction issue given that April and the children were in Utah.
April later revealed that the divorce was actually finalized in March of 2019 after “intense mediation.” Judging from her posts online, April has primary custody of her six children, but they do spend time with their dad as well. You can follow April on Instagram or check out her website!
Did Angela leave Drew Briney?
Based on social media posts over the past couple years, it appears as though Angela has also left Drew. Unlike with April, however, we cannot know for sure because neither party has posted specifics about separating.
The first clue is that Angela has dropped Briney from her name on all of her social media accounts. She now goes by her maiden name of Angela DiGiovanni.
Angela revealed on Facebook that she was living in Missouri in February of 2022 when she and her son, Lenny, moved to southwest Utah near St. George. She also posts often about moving on after being in a difficult relationship, which I assume is a reference to her marriage to Drew. Here is one example of Angela’s motivational Facebook posts from September of last year:
I spent a lot of my life mistaking attachment for love. Now that I’m aware of it, I see it everywhere. Attachment and love are very different. Attachment is squeezing the bird to death because you want to keep it. Love is letting it fly. 🕊
🕊 I’ve been the hands squeezing the bird.
🕊 I’ve been the squeezed bird.
🕊 I’ve been the hands that set the bird free.
🕊 And I’ve been the bird set free.There is no love without freedom. That is attachment.
There is no freedom without love.
#HumanDesign #OpenGCenter #UndefinedG #FreedomInLove #attachment #NonAttachment
Angela has teamed up with some friends in Utah to start a “small, outdoor nature school, focused on the discovery and health of the spirit, mind, and body first. Academics second.” She is also involved with Red Rock Sanctuary in Ivins, Utah. According to the Red Rock Sanctuary Instagram account, the retreat’s offerings include trauma release, a sound bath, a meditation labyrinth, colonics, cellular regeneration, a sweat lodge, and human design readings.
Drew Briney updates
Meanwhile, Drew’s posts also seem to suggest that he and Angela are no longer together and that it’s currently just him and his second wife, Auralee. Here’s one of Drew’s Facebook posts from July of 2022 about Auralee, which also seems to reveal that his career as a writer must not be that lucrative. Thankfully, his family got a bail out via a friend that really helped them out of a jam:
Today, a cool story.
I’ve been praying for a new van to pop into our lives but we haven’t had any money to get one. It’s been our only vehicle and it has no A/C, its doors are not reliable, and it always felt like it was an hour from death. Having no A/C in Arizona feels something like death, so maybe that’s why it felt like the van was near dying. lol
Saturday, Auralee was driving to her sister’s wedding. Apparently, the transmission decided it was too tired to go any further so it blew and left Auralee and our six kids stranded at the side of a highway with no shade (in 100 degree weather and after over two hours of driving without A/C) and it was a little under twenty miles to the nearest city.
When she called, I said to her: “well, maybe this is the way we get a new van,” even though we both knew we had no money to even buy a beat-up junker. It nearly sounded like a joke but I felt very peaceful about the situation.
Shortly after our call, one stranger picked Auralee and the kids up, treated them to Burger King, and dropped them off at a shaded park, another stranger loaned me an SUV to pick them up, and a friend, hearing our situation, immediately looked for a good deal and bought us a “new” van so Auralee could still make the wedding the next day and offered such casual loan terms that I think they were understood more than spoken.
The new van has brand new A/C, looks new because the previous owner took such good care of it, and drives so quietly that we can hear each other talking in the van (that hasn’t been the case for years with our previous van). Moreover, it looks very nice and is comfortable and mechanically sound.
Praise God! And thank God that in this crazy world, there are still amazing people who follow Him in their own ways.
Drew also reveals that he and Auralee were living in northern Arizona (right on the Utah border) at the time of the van break down. That is yet another indication that he and Angela are no longer together.
Is Drew Briney still seeking a sister wife?
Kody Brown has indicated that he is pretty much done with polygamy. Is Drew the same? Or is he still open to adding one or more sister wives?
According to a woman named Debra on instagram, Drew and Auralee are still open to adding a wife. In November of last year, Debra left this comment on Auralee’s Thanksgiving post:
Thanks for courting me as a potential sister wife for almost 18 months an then dropping me like a hot potato, your family has broken my heart, I out so much time, money an energy into being with you all, I’m heart broken 😞
On her previous post, Auralee shared a photo of a sign singing the praises of empathy. “Sorry I got hurt eh,” Debra commented, adding a red heart emoji.
There’s no way to verify Debra’s claims, but I did find evidence to support her connection to the couple. On Debra’s Facebook page, she has updated her profile photo 8 times since April of 2022. Drew liked 3 of the photos (2 of which he was the only like), and Auralee liked one of them (she was the only like on that one).
Hmm… I wonder if the Brineys were making a pitch to return to TLC?
Asa Hawks is a writer and editor for Starcasm. You can contact Asa via Twitter, Facebook, or email at starcasmtips(at)yahoo.com
