Teen Mom OG returns to MTV tonight, and with it, two new moms! Farrah Abraham has moved on to new projects is no longer on the show. Teen Mom OG has added Bristol Palin and Cheyenne Floyd to the roster and introduced us to them in a special that aired recently. Both moms are no stranger to reality TV. Cheyenne was part of Are You The One? and also The Challenge. Bristol has been in the spotlight due to her mom’s political position and has participated on her own reality show and competed on Dancing with the Stars, as well. Her son Tripp is currently competing on Dancing with the Stars Junior.
Cheyenne Floyd is the only one of the Teen Mom OG cast who wasn’t an actual teen mom. She didn’t get pregnant and give birth until she was in her twenties. She met Cory Wharton on reality TV and shortly after they hooked up, she found out she was pregnant. She had a boyfriend at the time and wasn’t sure who the father was. She told her boyfriend Zach the situation, but he didn’t care. But then when her daughter Ryder was born they found out she had a metabolism deficiency called VLCAD and at six months, doctors wanted her to have genetic testing done to help and that’s when they learned that Cory was indeed Ryder’s father.
Cory gushes over meeting his daughter for the first time, saying he knew immediately she was his. Talking about it brings him to tears. They co-parent well but things are tense because Cheyenne and Ryder live with Cheyenne’s boyfriend Zach. Cory admits that it’s tough because Ryder is around Zach so much and he’s also a father to her. But they all seem to be handling things pretty well and are all focused on what’s best for Ryder and being drama-free (as much as that’s possible). Cheyenne admits it’s a weird situation, especially since she and Cory didn’t actually date before becoming parents together. Cory and Cheyenne are both firm in that they aren’t interested in hooking up with each other ever again. Ryder comes first for them all and that’s all that matters.
Cheyenne has nothing but great things to say about Cory’s dad skills. She admits that he’s very sexy when he’s “dadding”. Cory doesn’t miss going out and partying. He wants Ryder to be raised by both parents.
Zach says he and Cheyenne have known each other for over ten years. Their dads introduced them. He and Cheyenne moved in together when Ryder was about seven months old. Her dad isn’t too thrilled about it when he finds out during the premiere episode. So stay tuned for that drama….
Cheyenne shares that her dad took her pregnancy the hardest, but her whole family was so supportive. Her dad admits he wanted her to abort the pregnancy because he didn’t think she was ready for motherhood at 23, but he says he’d never advocate for abortion again. He’s glad things have worked out the way they did. She knows she’s lucky and wasn’t “alone” in her pregnancy because her family supported her 100% and helped her.
Cheyenne‘s mom had some issues when Cory arrived on the scene because she was the “dad” role for the first six months. But Cory says that she has gotten better now that she knows he’s not going to be a fair-weather dad and plans to stick around.
She shares that managing Ryder’s condition is stressful and it’s something that can’t be cured. There are many potential health issues that go along with her condition and Cheyenne‘s anxiety over it is sky-high, as you’d expect.
Bristol Palin is well-known to most of the viewers already. Many of us know her because her own teen pregnancy at age 17 was pushed into the spotlight as her mom, Sarah Palin, ran alongside John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Others may know her from her other reality show stints – like Dancing with the Stars, Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp, or from her book, Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far.
Bristol is mom to three kids: Tripp, 9, Sailor, 2, and Atlee, 1. She shares son Tripp with ex-boyfriend Levi Johnston. Her other two daughters she shares with now-estranged husband, Dakota Meyer. We’ll see that relationship fall apart throughout the season. The two of them got engaged very quickly – just four months later and she got pregnant the night she got engaged. Soon after she got pregnant, Bristol got cold feet about getting married and called things off. They didn’t talk again until their daughter Sailor was born. She started feeling bad about not giving another child the “picture perfect life” with an in-tact family and reached out to Dakota. They rekindled and then eloped. Bristol shares that two weeks after Dakota got a vasectomy, she got pregnant with their second daughter, Atlee.
Bristol reveals in this special episode that she and Levi do their best to co-parent. She flies Tripp to Alaska to see his dad since they moved to Austin, Texas recently due to better veteran’s benefits for Dakota, who is a veteran and Medal of Honor recipient. Tripp and Levi have a good relationship and he spends as much time as he can with him. She says it’s a work in progress but that it’s better than in the past.
Bristol feels she’ll be a good addition to the show because she can relate to the other Teen Mom stars. She knows what it’s like to be in the press and also the struggle of being a teen mom. And she worked hard during and after her pregnancy. She worries that the other moms won’t like her because so many negative stories have been written about her. She even talks about the crazy video that circulated years ago of her son, Tripp. He said the words “fu** it” but it was edited to look like they were bleeping out the word homophobic word “fa**ot” instead. (captioned as f****t) And insinuating that she and her family were homophobic. She got a copy of the unedited clip and it proves that she’s telling the truth. She says it doesn’t make it okay that he cussed at age 4, but it was an f-bomb, not a homophobic slur. She hopes people realize that things said about her in the press are not true.
Bristol is super lonely in Austin, being so far away from her friends and family. She cries just talking about it. She needs support from her family because it’s hard dealing with Dakota‘s PTSD and their marriage issues. Dakota gets candid about his time in the military and what it means in his life. He was deployed twice and revealed that on a mission in Afghanistan in 2009 he lost his entire team. His dad admits that he was a complete wreck when he came home and has been trying to manage his PTSD ever since. Bristol struggles to help him since she’s not a psychiatrist and doesn’t know exactly what to do. When he’s stressed and has anxiety attacks, he lashes out and says things he later regrets and it has taken a toll on their relationship.
Before the kickoff of Teen Mom OG’s new season, the entire cast flew to NYC to meet up and chat. Amber Portwood, Maci Bookout and Catelynn Baltierra give the new moms a warm welcome and they all agree that they’re happy they can support one another and get along and not trash each other in the press. Maybe they should do an intervention for Kailyn Lowry and Jenelle Eason?
Bristol is filled with anxiety over meeting the OGs and Cheyenne knows she’ll constantly have to explain to others about why she’s on the show when she technically wasn’t a “teen mom”. She gives the others so much credit for handling teen motherhood at 16 and 17.
Tonight is the premiere of Teen Mom OG. Join us in the comments to dish on the first episode and come back tomorrow for the recap by our newest writer, Jen!
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Photo Credit: MTV
