Amber Portwood seems to no longer have the support of some of her Teen Mom: The Next Chapter co-stars.
During Thursday’s episode, Jade Cline and Cheyenne Floyd spoke out about how Amber’s treatment of her 16-year-old daughter Leah has made them angry and, seemingly, made them question if they want to be associated with the couch aficionado.
Jade– who invited Leah, as well as Leah’s dad Gary Shirley and their family to her daughter Khloie’s birthday party— stated that she doesn’t invite Amber to events, despite living only about 30 minutes from her, due to Amber never leaving her house or making plans to do anything. Jade also stated that she was none-too-pleased with Amber after watching her actions on the previous season of ‘Next Chapter.’
Jade went on to explain how seeing Amber devote herself to her then-fiancé Gary Wyat — instead of focusing on trying to fix the estranged relationship she has with Leah– made her angry. She also stated that she was disgusted watching how devastated Amber was when Gary ghosted her because Amber seemed to be more upset about the loss of Gary 2.0 than the loss of her relationship with her daughter.
“After all that energy put into a man instead of a child, to me, that’s what don’t sit right with me,” Jade told Cheyenne Floyd— who was visiting– and her friend Chau.
“That whole situation was crazy,” Cheyenne said of Amber’s fiancé going “missing” to get away from Amber. “It was hard to watch.”
Jade stated that— due to her strained relationship with her own mother, Christy Smith— she understood how Leah was felt, seeing her mom focusing more on herself (and men) than her daughter.
“It was triggering for me because I have a mother who is, like, so in herself, and herself is what is Number 1,” Jade said. “And it makes me sick to my f**king stomach!”
“It’s hard to watch the behavior towards Leah,” Cheyenne agreed. “And then it’s hard to see [Amber] blame…”
Jade has been estranged from her mom Christy on-and-off for years, due to Christy’s substance abuse and other issues, so she could relate to Leah’s situation with Amber.
“I feel like I used to be Leah, wondering why I wasn’t Number 1 for my mom,” Jade said, before turning back to how emotional Amber was on-screen over her engagement to Gary ending.
“The whole energy that was put into this dude— the crying, the meltdown— I’m like, that should be put into your family, because at the end of the day, you can always get a new man but you can never replace your children,” Jade said.
“The kid should be Number 1, always,” Jade added.
Later in the episode, Cheyenne sat down with Leah, who shared that she has to deal with people at her school coming up to her and talking about Amber. She also mentioned that it had been a long time since she had spoken to her mom (whom she called “Amber”).
“I haven’t really talked to her in a while, or seen her in a while,” Leah said. “It’s fine. I don’t really care anymore. Amber, when I do see her, she acts like everything is perfectly fine. It’s like, ‘I haven’t seen you in months. Why are you talking to me like this?'”
Cheyenne told the cameras in a confessional later that she feels Amber’s relationship with Leah is “really unfortunate and sad,” and that she doesn’t understand how a mom could be OK with not being around for her daughter.
“I could not imagine not showing up for [my daughter] Ryder,” Cheyenne said. “There’s nobody who could keep me from showing up for Ryder. Nobody. Nothing!
“…it’s really hard to understand,” she continued. “I would be at [Gary’s house] damn near every day trying to fight for my relationship with my child.”
Jade and Cheyenne aren’t the first ‘Teen Mom’ cast members to publicly slam Amber for her treatment of Leah. Back in September, Taylor Selfridge stated in a video posted to social media that one of her co-stars makes her want to “rip my hair out watching them because I don’t get how it’s that difficult to be a good parent. Kids just need love.”
While Taylor didn’t call out Amber by name, she did go on to praise a certain stepmom for being so patient with the birth mom, leading fans to conclude that Taylor was almost certainly talking about Kristina Shirley.
“I get mad at it too. Like, I don’t watch the episodes but I see, like, clips here and there,” Taylor said. “There’s nothing that makes me more mad than when a child is suffering from things that a parent does.”
Around the same time, Ashley Jones wrote on social media that Amber’s parenting is “very hard to watch…along with all the pacifying and coddling.”
Briana DeJesus has also given her thoughts on the situation, reposting one of The Ashley’s stories in September that discussed how Gary had confirmed that Amber had not seen Leah for months after Amber’s engagement to Gary 2.0 ended in June.
“That’s terrible,” Briana wrote in her post.
