So much for that big, blended family.
After telling Gary Shirley that she wants to be in her daughter Leah’s life more, Amber Portwood was met with pushback when Shirley slammed his ex not being their for the 15-year-old teen.
On Thursday’s all new Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, Portwood called Shirley over FaceTime to discuss how she could better be consistent when it comes to Leah.
“What’s the reasons why Leah is not able to come over here and stay the night? What’s the reasons why I’m not able to go to her cross country? What are the reasons why I’m not being told certain things?” Portwood asks while sat next to new fiancé, Gary Wayt. “When it comes to Leah saying certain things, like, if she doesn’t wanna do anything, well, I’m at the point now that it doesn’t really matter. I want to see my daughter.”
“So this is when I say to you, facts are facts,” she continues. “And we can’t sit here and act like, ‘It’s Amber. It’s Amber. It’s Amber.’ ‘Cause the ‘f–k if it is me.’ I’ve been doing nothing but trying to get Leah back in my life while I’m getting pushed out for years and years and years now.”
At the end of the day, Amber’s plea was just to see her daughter more, but Shirley said that’s just something Leah isn’t ready for.
“Why?” Portwood questions.
Bringing it back to the lack of communication that seems to exist between the co-parents, Shirley claims that Portwood is “hard to get ahold of” when it comes to making plans, and sometimes takes “days” to reply to texts from both him and his wife, Kristina.
“You haven’t been reaching out,” Shirley says.
“First of all, this is what has been going on for years now,” Portwood hits back. “Everybody has an excuse, even after I change. So what’s your excuse now?”
While Shirley claims he doesn’t have an excuse, Portwood maintains that Leah is just as much her daughter as she is Shirley’s.
That point, however, was met with a biting reply from the father of two, who said Portwood is “not there” for Leah, setting Portwood off and ending the conversation between the pair.
“That’s too much to take,” she says after hanging up the phone.
The call comes after Portwood announced her engagement to Wayt to Leah and Shirley, after not seeing her daughter or her ex for seven months the day after a family barbeque where they celebrated Portwood’s birthday.
The teen admitted it was still “awkward” seeing her mom, adding that she felt it was “kind of rushed” how Portwood got engaged after popping back into their lives.
Shirley agreed it was “awkward” they found out she was engaged the day after they met Wayt for the first time, after not seeing Portwood for so long.
“We hardly got any messages from her and now that she’s engaged,” added Kristina. “We’re happy for her. But all of a sudden she wants to start coming more. Where was she for the past 7 months? She was working on that relationship with him, but here Leah’s been here the entire time.”‘
The episode ended with a look ahead at next week’s season finale, with that relationship Portwood worked on for those last seven months quickly crumbling when Wayt goes missing during a trip to North Carolina for Portwood’s brother’s wedding in June.
While Wayt was found soon after, fans of the couple know that the relationship did not last upon Wayt’s safe return, with Us Weekly reporting that the two have since called off their engagement and decided “it’s over between them.”
