Back then, she was a teenager from Anderson, Indiana, navigating an unexpected pregnancy with her then-boyfriend Gary Shirley.
We watched as she gave birth to her daughter, Leah Leann Shirley, and struggled with the realities of teenage motherhood.
For many viewers, Amber's journey became a fixture in their lives as her story continued on Teen Mom OG. We witnessed the highs and lows, her tumultuous relationship with Gary, her struggles with mental health, substance abuse, and eventually, her legal troubles that led to prison time.
But while audiences watched Amber's story unfold on their screens, her daughter Leah was living it in real time.
Now 16 herself — the same age Amber was when she became pregnant — Leah is sharing her own perspective on growing up with Amber as her mother. And it's revealing a painful reality behind the cameras.
In a recent episode of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, Leah expressed her desire to be adopted by her stepmother, Kristina Shirley, who married Gary after his three-year engagement to Amber ended in 2011. The couple co-parent Leah and share a biological daughter named Emilee.
"I want to be adopted because Kristina's been there my whole life," Leah explained.
"I just feel like it should be official. And it's more than a piece of paper to me."
The teenager has been living with Gary, Kristina and their nine-year-old daughter Emilee, with Kristina taking on the day-to-day maternal role in Leah's life. But making the adoption official wouldn't be straightforward, as Gary discovered after consulting with an attorney.
"If everything was to go smoothly, after filing paperwork, which you would have to sign some stuff, too, it could take three months," Gary told his daughter.
"If Amber contests, then it could take, like, a year. It could take longer."
Leah understands the potential for conflict. "If we say something or do something, she might try to do stuff and make it harder," she said.
"And by then it might take two years. And then at that point, there's no point in even going through all the trouble for it. So, I don't know. I'll have to think about it."
While she hasn't commented on it directly, Amber is reportedly against the adoption.
In an episode in July 2024, Gary messaged Amber in an attempt to get her to reconnect with Leah.
His ex-fiancée replied: "I've texted and called Leah a million times! No answer, nothing ever back.
"I've done everything to be in her life, I've gotten crapped on. I never get to spend time with her," the message continued.
"I'm tired of being unhappy and fighting for attention from everyone. I'm not a horrible person, I'm a loving mother."
Kristina, too, has chimed in on the situation, saying that Leah "wants to have a mum that's there that [she] can depend on. Somebody that doesn't always make it about herself."
As a child who grew up on television, Leah now faces the unique experience of discovering her own childhood through social media clips — and what she's seeing has been difficult to process.
In a candid conversation with her father on the show, Leah shared how her friends are discovering her television past: "My friend messaged me, and she was like, 'Are you on a TV show?' And I was like, 'Yeah.' And she was like, 'a video just popped up on my TikTok' and I was like, 'Oh.'"
When Gary asked if there were clips that were painful to watch, Leah didn't hesitate: "I see the older ones, from when I was like two, maybe, and it's just weird to watch, because it's always like, Amber screaming at you."
Leah with her biological mum, Amber. Image: Instagram/@realamberlportwood1__
She continued, "There was one clip where she was yelling, 'Why is Leah crying?' when she's in a complete opposite room, just leaving me? It was just weird. Those ones are painful to watch. I just think I have a lot of issues because of Amber and like the experiences that I've had."
Perhaps most heartbreaking is Leah's revelation about how her mother's absence has affected her ability to trust others in her life.
"I do have abandonment issues from her not being around," Leah admitted.
"But I do know there's a lot of things going on that makes it difficult for her to be able to be there for me, and I feel like it does affect me every day, because I'm always scared that Kristina is gonna leave me, I'm always scared that people are just gonna leave me."
Gary acknowledged his own regrets about the situation: "Honestly, no joke, I wish I would have done more. I wish I just took you and left instantly."
He suggested that Leah might not remember certain incidents as a protective mechanism: "I don't know if that's a trauma thing, like, where your brain shuts off the bad stuff."
Leah with her dad Gary, his wife Kristina, and their daughter Emilee. Image: Instagram/@itsgarytime
Both father and daughter recognise the need for professional help to process these experiences. Gary encouraged Leah to consider therapy, offering it as a safe space: "The way it works is you can go in there and you can talk to them about anything you want to talk about."
Leah also expressed a desire to work through her feelings towards her mother.
"Yeah, I want to overcome that so I can be able to forgive her and move on. I think it would help to have someone to guide me on how to forgive someone, because it's hard for me to do that."
When confronted with her daughter's feelings during a live social media video, Amber denied that she had instigated no-contact.
"I was told to stay away… like, not to stay away, but, all that stuff. I would never do that. I want to have my daughter with me. I would love to have my daughter with me.
It's up to her that she doesn't want to be around me at the moment while she's doing therapy. I understand," she said.
Amber also rejected the notion that she had traumatised Leah.
"She said on the show that she didn't remember anything bad… so it's not trauma," Amber said.
"She's not traumatised because of me. I didn't do anything to her like that. The yelling, yeah, that happened less than three years, and that was on and off. It's not trauma."
