Kail Lowry‘s 15-year-old son Isaac (who now goes by his middle name Elliott) publicly came out as gay on her Barely Famous podcast earlier this month, and now the former Teen Mom 2 star is revealing how Elliott’s dad Jo Rivera felt about their son using her podcast to go public.
In an interview with Parade, Kail revealed that she spoke to Jo (whom she has had a very rocky relationship in the past) about the episodes featuring Elliott. Based off the interview, it appears that Kail didn’t run the idea by Jo before recording the episode with Elliott.
Even so, it appears that Jo was OK with what Kail and Elliott discussed on the podcast.
“Jo and I had a really good conversation [the other day], and you know, he said that he listened to the episodes. He was really proud of Elliott, and he said that he was happy,” Kail said. “He was perfectly fine with the questions that were being asked.”
During the podcast episode, Elliott detailed how members of Jo’s family— including Jo’s mom Janet— took the news when he came out to them. However, Elliott shied away from discussing his relationship with Jo. (He did say, though, that Jo found out officially that Elliott was gay when he was in fifth grade, after he was outed by a classmate.)
Although this caused fans to speculate that Jo wasn’t supportive of his son coming out, Kail implied that this is not the case.
“He understands why Elliott wanted to do [the podcast] … I had the conversation with [Jo], and he came up to me, you know? And he said that he’s supportive of it,” she said.
During the episode, Elliott and Kail discussed how devastated Elliott was last month when several ‘Teen Mom’ social media pages posted private photos of him and his boyfriend attending their high school prom.
“You know, as unfortunate as it is that his boyfriend and his pictures were leaked, I think that he feels [relieved] that he can sort of live authentically, both publicly and privately now,” Kail told Parade.
“I think that he feels a sense of relief. And that’s what he sort of told me. He was like, ‘I just want to help one person. If I could do that, then I feel like I did what I was supposed to do,’” she added.
Elliott also disputed on the podcast some people’s claims that he didn’t spend enough time with his dad, which was a possible reason he “became” gay.
“People have said that you weren’t around your dad enough, or that I was doing certain things in my parenthood that ‘turned’ you gay. Do you feel like any of that is true?” Kail asked.
“No!” Elliott said on the podcast before reminding fans that his parents have 50/50 custody of him and that’s he’s spent equal time with them.
“I think people confuse who they’re around, the parent, they confuse it with masculinity. It’s not about sexuality; it’s about how masculine/feminine they are,” he said.
In April, Kail gave People an update on where her own relationship with Jo stands. (As The Ashley reported last year, Kail stated on one of her podcasts that her relationships with some of her four baby daddies are so bad, she planned to include it in her will that she wanted them “physically removed” from her funeral if they showed up, adding that she wanted them “humiliated.”)
It appears that things are “better” between Kail and Jo now, but only because they now have to interact less because Elliott is older.
“Now that Isaac’s 15, we don’t have a whole lot to fight about at this point,” Kail told People in April. “We really only communicate if we absolutely have to because I think that, for the most part, we’ve gotten through most of the hard stuff. And that’s not to say there won’t be more stuff coming in the future, with him graduating high school in the next couple years and cars and all of that… [I] don’t really talk to Jo about anything,”
As fans will remember, Kail had a very public falling out with Jo’s wife Vee Torres last year, resulting in the end of their Baby Mamas No Drama podcast. Kail has not revealed recently where her relationship with Vee stands, although Elliott maintains a good relationship with his stepmom.
