Teen Mom returns for final season

The original Teen Mom cast returns Tuesday for their final season. Image via Teen Mom Facebook fan page.

The original Teen Mom cast returns June 12 for their final time with MTV viewers, and fans will be treated to one of the most dramatic seasons yet. While the original Teen Mom’s bad girl Amber Portwood has had run-ins with the law, the other three young ladies have dealt with financial hardships, breakups and, in Catelynn Lowell’s case, handling the fallout from giving her daughter Carly up for adoption.

When the girls hit the television screens for the first time, they were on the first season of MTV’s 16 and Pregnant, a documentary series. Amber was in high school and pregnant with her older boyfriend, Gary Shirley, who was a friend of her older brother. Farrah, also in high school, was pregnant with her ex-boyfriend’s child. Sadly, Derek Underwood, Abraham’s ex, died two months before her daughter was born. Catelynn Lowell’s 16 and Pregnant episode showed her pregnancy with longtime boyfriend Tyler Baltierra, whom she’d dated since seventh grade. They also had another unique connection: Tyler’s dad and Catelynn’s mom married after getting to know each other when Ty and Cate were dating, making the two step-siblings. Maci Bookout, who is known as the good girl of the original Teen Mom franchise, was pregnant with her boyfriend’s child. Ryan Edwards was her high school sweetheart, and the two lived together for the first season of Teen Mom but broke up after several failed attempts to make it work.

Over the last two seasons of Teen Mom, viewers have seen Amber, Farrah, Catelynn and Maci attempt to make their lives successful, through their relationships, school, work and interactions with family. In the upcoming season, viewers will see each of the girls go through some of their biggest struggles yet. Most of their adventures have been broadcasted in the media, so viewers will have a general idea of what’s going to happen, but there will still be some surprises waiting for those die-hard fans who keep up with every little piece of news that’s out there about the Teen Moms.

Amber Portwood has always been the most controversial of all of the girls on the original Teen Mom cast. Seemingly normal at the beginning of the series, she and boyfriend Gary Shirley became engaged and started raising their daughter Leah together. Before too long, however, there were reports of domestic violence. While the most common situation in domestic violence is the man harming the woman, in Amber and Gary’s case it was just the opposite. Amber was caught several times, on camera, hitting Gary. Not only was she caught hitting him on camera, but she was caught doing it while cursing violently in front of their daughter, who was an infant and toddler at the time. From there, things spiraled out of control.

Amber began taking prescription drugs to deal with her problems, most of which were legal in nature. She first had to deal with court and jail time because of her domestic violence situation with Gary. There were no-contact orders put into place and court dates she had to keep. After the situation with Gary was sorted out, she was caught with prescription drugs and had to deal with the legal responsibilities that came along with that. According to TMZ, Amber was sentenced to five years in prison after a December 2011 drug arrest, all of which should be shown in the upcoming season of Teen Mom. In December, the sentence had been stayed, TMZ reported, as long as she went to drug rehab and completed a program, but Amber left the program and asked to go to prison instead. TMZ also reported that Amber said she is addicted to Suboxone, an opiate substance that is used to help addicts get off of opiate medications when they’re addicted. According to TMZ, Amber said she can’t control herself around the drug and asked to be sent back to jail, where she has no access to Suboxone and will be forced to quit cold turkey.

Portwood’s cast mate Farrah Abraham came to her defense Thursday on Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM radio show when she said she knew Amber was simply trying to do the best thing for her family.

“I wish her the best. I know she’s just trying to get through this hard time. I’ve worked through my hard time, so I just hope she works through whatever she has to go through and is back home with her child and is happy with her family,” said Abraham.

At the end of last season, Farrah graduated from culinary school and began searching for a new place to live. In a 2010 interview with Radar Online, Abraham, who is from the small town of Council Bluffs, Iowa, said her five-year plan included moving after earning her culinary degree. Toward the end of last season, she told her parents she was looking for a larger city to call home. After checking out several cities, Farrah told her mother and father she’d chosen to move to Fort Lauderdale, FL to continue her education. During the show, her parents were less than enthusiastic about her decision, making sure she knew that it would be difficult to raise her child alone, without any family around to help.

According to teenmomnews.com, Farrah’s move to Florida will be documented on the upcoming season of Teen Mom, and it will further strain her relationship with her parents. Her decision to take baby Sophia with her, says the site, leaves her parents with feelings of resentment, causing a division in the family. Teenmomnews.com also said that the upcoming season will feature romance for Farrah.

One Teen Mom who hasn’t had to worry about finding a partner after becoming a mother is Catelynn Lowell. Not only did she give up her baby for adoption, but she and boyfriend Tyler Baltierra had been together since seventh grade. Last season, they moved out of their parents’ house – April, Catelynn’s mom, and Butch, Tyler’s dad, were married and lived together until Butch went to jail and was released to a halfway house upon his release – and into their own place. In the upcoming season, teenmomnews.com reports that Catelynn and Tyler will both graduate from high school and become even more independent. Because of this, they will start to feel more successful and confident and will realize they would have made great parents to the daughter they gave up for adoption. Though they know Carly is with wonderful parents and the adoption is open, they will second-guess their decision and wonder if they could have provided for her. In addition to their regrets, Butch’s legal trouble will continue and cause stress for the whole family.

College girl Maci Bookout has long been considered the good girl of the original Teen Mom cast. From Tennessee, Maci showed an interest in extreme sports like motocross, and an interest in men who appreciated them as well. When the season begins, Maci will be dating Kyle King, the boyfriend for whom she moved several hours away and transferred universities. During the middle of last season, Maci decided it was too difficult to live so far away from home and moved back to her home town of Chattanooga. In the upcoming season, viewers will see her struggle with her relationship with Kyle, struggle with custody issues with Edwards and have frustrations with Edwards’ new girlfriend Dalis.

In addition to their individual troubles, Reality Weekly’s July 11 edition reported that there are rumors of an anonymous tell-all book about the Teen Mom girls making the rounds. The rumors say that there are some scenes that never make it past editing and the tell-all publication could expose those secrets that the girls don’t want anyone to know.

For Maci, said Reality Weekly, there are rumors that she’s not the good girl everyone thinks she is but instead a cold, calculating manipulator. In addition, said the magazine, there are rumors going around that the real reason Maci and Kyle King broke up is because she was cheating on him by sexting with several guys.

For Farrah, the rumors also have the potential to hurt her reputation. Reality Weekly says she was at one point shopping for sugar daddies to help pay her bills and buy her expensive gifts. The inside source who talked to Reality Weekly said Farrah was looking for wealthy men on the Internet to take her shopping and she even had one older man paying all of her bills. The source said at the time it seemed like Farrah was behaving like a hooker.

Amber, who it doesn’t seem like could have much to lose from a tell-all, is also strangely scared for the book to hit store shelves. While it wasn’t made public knowledge, said a source to Reality Weekly, she had several lesbian advances made to her while she was in jail and she’s also scared that her horrible parenting will be shown publicly.

Catelynn, who seems like a good girl in comparison to some of the Teen Mom cast members, is also scared about what could come out about her in the book. There are rumors that she dealt with eating disorders in high school, and many of her former classmates said that while Catelynn didn’t sleep around while in school, she was known as a “kissing slut”. Despite the fact that the information about her is mild in comparison to her costars, Catelynn still doesn’t want the information to get out.

For more information on the Teen Moms or a schedule for the upcoming season, click here.