Reasons Why Teen Mom Is Totally Fake
Teen Mom just might be your guilty pleasure—but despite propaganda that MTV might put out there to prove otherwise, there's a whole lot of information to back up claims that the reality show is based on anything but reality.
Check out the reasons why Teen Mom is totally fake, and get ready for all the must-not-see TV tidbits to come raining down on your parade.... or your Teen Mom marathon... either way.
First rumblings of fakery in action
In 2012, a source told Starcasm that all of the Teen Mom drama was "recreated" for dramatic purposes. The source went on to allege that most of the things in the MTV reality show were "calculated," and that during what was supposed to be a major breakup scene between Kailyn Lowry and her boyfriend at the time, Jordan Wenner, things were much less explosive than they should have been... mostly because Wenner already knew that Lowry had cheated and that the relationship was done for.
This wasn't the only example where fleeting—or even longer-lasting—relationships ended on a seemingly-strange note.
In the same episode that Starcasm reviewed, it was revealed that sketchy things appeared to be happening with another of the show's couples—Leah Messer and Corey Simms, who married in 2010, and divorced in 2011. Messer was said to have cheated on Simms, which was a highly-publicized event on the show, yet when rumors swirled about a girl named Jordan Humble, who reportedly met up with Simms the very night that Messer filed for divorce, the opportunity for excellent gossip fodder wasn't featured on the show at all. This led some to believe that MTV couldn't keep up with their cast's revolving relationship doors, and instead of trying to play catch-up, tweaked their "performances" on the show by heavily editing conversations and blowouts that had purportedly already happened.
Former cameraman dished all on Reddit AMA
The Teen Mom cameraman, who remained anonymous, divulged everything during an extremely transparent 2012 Reddit AMA. While practically everything he posted—including his profile—was deleted in its entirety later on, Crushable was able to verify a lot of the interview, and it certainly sounded pretty damning.
When flat-out asked if the show was fake—or scripted—the Teen Mom staffer answered, "It's not scripted in the way a narrative would be, but the storyline is heavily produced by the director."
"It gets to the point," he revealed, "where the director is feeding them lines."
The cameraman claimed that the stress of the job—especially watching these young women mess up the lives of their children—drove him to quit the filming job halfway through the third season. According to Crushable, he also claimed that a lot of what he saw made him cry, he consumed a lot of alcohol in order to sleep at night, and that the trouble mainly surrounded the show's Leah Messer. About Messer, he purportedly said, "When feeding her twins, she would spill a bunch of cheese puffs on the nasty carpet and the girls would crawl around and suck up the cheese puffs, no hands involved."
"This made me cry a few times," he admitted.
THAT scene between Messer's two ex-husbands
Not as real as it seemed? Messer had a lot to say about a face-to-face interaction between her two ex-husbands, Jeremy Calvert and the aforementioned Simms.
In an episode that aired in September 2015, Messer's two exes teamed up to discuss their former wife's struggles. In the clip, Calvert said, "She went from being normal to being a complete 180. Prescription pill problem," he added, as he smirked. "This drug issue that everybody knows she has is swept under that carpet and don't want nobody knowing where she went," Simms responded. "We're the father of her children. We need to know what's going on with the mother of our children. Why are you sweeping it under the rug acting like it's no big deal?"
After she saw (and tweeted) the preview clip, Messer took her grievances to Twitter. She claimed that the show was "scripted," and that Calvert knew all about it. She said, "In the scene, you can tell Jeremy was looking over at a producer saying something about a prescription pill problem and they edit it to where it looks as if he is saying that to Corey. I could go on but [it's] best I didn't."
Messer continued, "Not to mention [Calvert] just told me this scene was filmed before I even left [for rehab] the FIRST time lol." Messer took it a step further, and tweeted that Calvert and Simms didn't even like each other. "I talked to [Calvert] the whole time...[He] can't stand [Simms]. This was definitely SET UP and not even the truth." Messer concluded, "Don't care if I do get in trouble, this is BS. I should open my mouth way more," she added.
Two months later, a source purportedly told Radar Online that Messer's rant was spot-on, and that the entire scene between Calvert and Simms was, in fact, scripted. The source revealed, "When [Simms] and [Calvert] went out to get a drink [and talked] about [Messer], the show set it up. It was all their doing."
"They [pushed Calvert] to say things [...] about her drug addiction," the source continued, and also claimed that the production would often "flip the stories around" to make it appear that they were happening in an order that would ensure maximum drama.
Jenelle Evans—or MTV—may have staged a boyfriend
Evans, easily one of the more troubled teen moms on the show when it came to legal woes, was plagued by rumors in 2013 that a former boyfriend—Nathan Griffith—was either handpicked by MTV, or just a staged relationship for the sake of a relationship and ratings.
Celeb Dirty Laundry (CDL) revealed that Exceed Images was Griffith's employer during his time dating Evans, and reported that just days after MTV confirmed that Griffith was Evans' new boyfriend, all of his portfolio pictures magically disappeared from the site.
As of October 2016, Griffith had Exceed Images listed as a former employer on Facebook. Other jobs listed include freelance personal trainer, as well as running-back for the American Indoor Football Association. CDL obtained snippets of Twitter conversations about Griffith sent out by his former employer to the tune that Griffith was "under contract" to appear on Teen Mom. Some of the tweets read, "Mums the word on our favorite model Nathan Griffith's appearance this season. We are only allowed to say 'stay tuned,' " he revealed. When pushed as to whether MTV had contracted Griffith specifically in order to play the part of Evans' current boyfriend, Griffith's manager neither confirmed nor denied the allegations, and simply stated that his client was "under contract."
This further led people to believe that Griffith was specifically selected to play Evans' boyfriend on Teen Mom.
Amber Portwood's faked engagement?
In early 2015, Portwood met boyfriend Matthew Baier shortly after being released from prison. From the get-go, people were suspicious of his placement in Portwood's life, as well as his motive. Radar Online reported outright that Baier proposed to Portwood "for the cameras," and that their relationship was nothing more than a last-ditch effort to resuscitate Portwood's career after being jailed and out of the Teen Mom mix for quite some time.
Radar Online continued that the couple—who'd only been dating for months at the time of the proposal—and their affections were "all for show," and that the engagement itself was a "cheap ploy for camera time."
Perhaps MTV itself didn't have a hand in choosing Baier as a Portwood mate—heaven knows there'd be far better fish in the sea than the lying, backtracking Baier. In 2016, Portwood was said to have called off their engagement—but if Portwood herself chose Baier, perhaps she simply needed a little training and cultivating.
An insider reportedly told Radar Online that the couple's relationship was far from stable, and that "they [had] a very tumultuous relationship" at that time. The source continued, "They [got] into big fights and Matt [would say] he's moving out. But then hours later, [they'd] act like everything is fine."
Portwood herself, however, had much to say after allegations of staging emerged. She fired back at the tabloids via—ahem—Teen Mom's own MTV and said, "We are very happy. I've never felt this way about somebody else in my life." She continued, lambasting the rumors, and said, "I don't stage things for [the cameras]." Portwood was adamant that storylines were not created solely—or at all in part—for the cast of Teen Mom. "I live my life," she said, simply. "MTV follows me—I don't follow them. "
"Everything that is seen on Teen Mom OG is our lives," she concluded, "and this is the way it is. We've never tried to do anything to please others. It's our lives to help others—it's not just for TV."
A teen mom broke her silence, went on rampage
In April 2016, one of the most damning pieces of evidence to support claims that Teen Mom was completely and utterly faked was when Messer tweeted that Teen Mom was a "fake-a** TV show" and that she was "over it" to over 1 million followers.
Later in the year, Messer went off on the network—and rumors at large—with a diatribe comprised of several vociferous Twitter updates. In summary, the tweet rant read, "I will still be thankful that I'm in the best place I've ever been in my life and will continue to grow. It's so sad how the person behind the editing can even live a happy life by editing to manipulate the audience watching. It makes me feel like my story just isn't enough."
"I did hit rock bottom," she admitted, "but I [came] out of it and I was willing to air it all because if just one person watched and reached out for help, even when they [felt] so alone, that's all I cared about. Because I could never imagine anyone feeling the pain, hurt, depression, and anxiety that I was suffering from," she continued.
"I wanted to bring awareness and help others," she continued, "and if MTV couldn't share that, then I will do it on my own the way God wants me to." She wasn't done there, though. "It hurts to feel betrayed by the ones I thought I could trust with my story," she concluded. "It goes to show you how 'the entertainment world' really is, and I guess everyone will see where I really am starting episode 4."
"When others that [are] suffering could already be reaching out for help, it just breaks my heart!" she wrote. "It's not okay but I know that I am now in such [an] amazing place and I love you all!"
"I hope to continue to share my story," she continued, cautiously, "but I refuse to allow it to be twisted for the benefit of a network." That network, one might assume, could be MTV.
One of the teen moms is so fake, a petition went around?
In early 2016, Farrah Abraham was the butt of a petition on Change.org, whose goal is to have Abraham removed from Teen Mom due to her all-around "fake" behavior. The amateur injunction didn't seem to rattle MTV, because as of October 2016 when the petition was close to 70 thousand signatures, Abraham was still very much a part of Teen Mom: OG.
The petition called for Abraham's removal from the production due to flagrant and obvious uses of fakery in her life, such as purportedly employing a stand-in boyfriend, fake "leaking" a "private" sex tape, encouraging behavior that would exhibit fakeness in both body and mind—i.e., her myriad plastic surgery endeavors and using doublespeak when it came to her actions versus her admonishments—and that the "fans" of the MTV show were said to often fast-forward through Abraham's segments. The motion claimed that Abraham was single-handedly ruining the show, as well as ruining her daughter, Sophia's, life.
The petition called for MTV to fire Abraham, and "restore integrity" to the "beloved show."
Is it all REALLY staged?
During the 2016 season of Teen Mom: OG, things really came to a head.
Catelynn Lowell and Maci Bookout were at the heart of the fake-out matter in this particular season, as Lowell admitted herself to rehab and Bookout discovered she was pregnant again. Naturally, though, things didn't really add up. As for Lowell, the Teen Mom production made it seem like she was in attendance at the family's Easter celebration, yet her husband, Tyler Baltierra, confirmed that Lowell was actually in rehab during the holiday break. On Twitter, Baltierra wrote, "[Lowell] was in rehab and I was trying to get Easter pics with Nova for her when I visited her."
As for Bookout, her pregnancy was noticeable both on and off the screen well before she took a test to confirm that she was with child. During the 2016 season premiere, Bookout appeared to be very obviously pregnant, and yet didn't really chalk her "weight gain" up to much. When her partner, Taylor McKinney, joked that she should go and get a pregnancy test, it seemed extremely forced and awkward. Bookout herself acted overly shocked when the home pregnancy test came back positive.
She had even told Us Weekly an entirely different story—and her version of events, as opposed to that of the show, was that she'd gone to visit the doctor to re-up her birth control pills, but that during routine testing, a positive result for pregnancy had come up.
Uh, busted?