Amber Portwood Claims Gary Shirley is “Blackmailing” Her & Begged Her to Return to ‘Teen Mom’; Encourages Fans to “Stop Watching” Show

Amber Portwood is doubling down on the claims she made against her baby daddy Gary Shirley during a fiery Christmas Eve TikTok Live, and throwing out more accusations against him and the editors and producers of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter for supporting Gary in his “lies.” 

As The Ashley previously reported, Amber went on an epic rant on December 24 against Gary, who is the father of her daughter Leah. During that rant, Amber claimed that Gary was a rapist, a terrible father and more. After that rant, Amber left TikTok Live for a while, but this week she was back, claiming that Gary is currently blackmailing her, after spending months allegedly begging Amber to return to filming ‘Teen Mom’ due to him being broke and at risk of losing his home.

Amber also claimed that Gary has lied about her not seeing Leah, as well as not paying him child support, and because of this, Amber encouraged fans not to watch ‘Teen Mom: The Next Chapter.’

Amber— who was incredibly upset that fans of the show were calling her selfish, a narcissist and other unsavory things— was sobbing at times during the hours-long rant on Live earlier this week.

“I gave up half my life for you guys to be saying this awful s**t about me. I thought you guys were f**king smarter than that. Really?! I’m not high, I’m not manic, I’m not anything. I never gave my kids up! I fought!” Amber said, sobbing, before letting out an ear-piercing scream of “WHAT THE F**K!? What is wrong with you guys?! What the f**k is wrong with you!? Is this what you want?!”

“You know what I regret? Not MTV. But giving 17 years of my life to motherf**kers like you [haters], who are calling me a liar and a f**king victim when I showed you the raw, real s**t of what we really go through….and how dare you go against me for that?” she said.”…Yeah, I made decisions that were poor from stuff that was around me, like anyone else.”

Amber eventually turned her rage toward Gary, stating that everything she said about Gary during her Christmas Eve rant is true. When fans expressed their allegiance to Gary, Amber became extremely angry.

“You’re gonna stand with Gary?” Amber said, reading one of the comments. “Then stand with him! And burn in hell with him!

“You’re GROSS,” she screamed, asking the commenter, “How could you not see through [his] s**t? Did we watch the same show? No. You didn’t watch my life. You watched anytime they got me riled up or got me in a situation!”

Amber then stated that if she is the problem, she can quit the show “and everybody can go live in a shack,” implying that her being on the show keeps everyone living a comfortable lifestyle. 

“Because I’m the one who goes through this s**t so that they don’t have to!” she claimed. “I have sacrificed 17 years of my f**king life to live in hell. Not because of the show, but because of a person and you guys are like, ‘We stand with him.’ I can’t even say certain things now. This world is messed up. [He] was begging me, ‘Please come back on the show! We can’t pay our bills!'”

Amber also claimed that person (whom we can assume is Gary) was telling Amber it’s her “job” to be on ‘Teen Mom.’ 

“Guys, I left the show twice and was completely broke,” Amber said. “I knew I wasn’t going to have the money…I came back, yes, but… I was begged by a person who said they needed the money. I’m gonna take care of my f**king daughter. What would you guys do?”

Amber claimed Gary begged her for “months” to return to filming.

“I came back for my daughter, just to have [Gary] lie on me on everything, after I did [the show again] just so [Gary and Kristina] weren’t losing their s**t,” Amber said. “I feel so defeated, knowing how much I sacrificed my privacy. I feel really, really defeated. …I’m so sad that people think of me the way they do, and it’s all because of one man– just one man!— who lied out of his f**king teeth. Just one, that’s all it took.”

Amber claimed that Gary used her mental illnesses against her while they were together. 

“And he’s still doing it. I’m getting blackmailed right now guys. Literally. That’s why I’m not seeing my daughter…” Amber said.

As The Ashley previously reported, stories surfaced in the media months ago claiming that Gary and Amber’s once-decent co-parenting relationship soured because Amber owed Gary years’ worth of child support payments. Amber has denied this, and in this week’s Live discussed the situation.

“I spent over $200,000, which is way over the amount [I owed] for Leah, and I paid hundreds of thousands of dollars on the side for gifts and things like that,” Amber said. “And he’s trying to say I never once paid child support. And he lied to me and said he was bringing the child support money [I paid] to the courts, and he never did, all those years! I have all these receipts from my bank.

“And then, if someone’s going to blackmail you and think they can keep on taking control of you, then you better know how to take consequences of me being so good to a person…”

Amber also brought up the fact that Gary claimed on social media that she had not seen Leah in more than eight months at one point, something she also denied. 

“…and then, he’s lying about me not seeing her. And saying that I wasn’t going over there. I was going over there three to four times a week when we weren’t filming, guys,” Amber insisted. ” And he said I didn’t see her for six or eight months in the media, because the show was about to start. What the hell?”

As for why Gary is “lying” about all of these things, Amber offered the explanation that Gary is afraid that the show is going to end and he’s trying to keep it going by creating drama.

“This s**t was planned!” Amber said. “If you think [Gary] is a good person, then what the hell? I did nothing but give and make sure everyone was taken care of. I wasn’t even taking care of myself. I finally started to take care of myself and then I get attacked for taking care of myself. I get called a narcissist and selfish.

“I’ve never done a selfish thing in my life!” Amber continued.

“The only selfish thing I did was be an addict. That was so f**king selfish, but all those lies about me not seeing my daughter, it’s not f**king true,” she said.

Amber then spoke about Leah, whom she currently has no relationship with– something she blamed on Gary.

“That poor baby girl, that poor girl got manipulated at a very young age,” Amber stated of her now-16-year-old daughter. “It’s absolutely horrific, guys. God, I love her. But I will never, ever, respect a man that would do what he did…he wanted his money. He wanted his story. Then he cries to the producers because I was off the show and [he] asked [them] why they weren’t filming them.”

Amber claims that, unlike Gary, she didn’t continue to film for ‘Teen Mom’ for the money. Instead, she stated that she did it to help others.

“It’s just money. And I’m over here, raw, giving my soul to you guys. How do you not see that?” Amber said. “Yeah, their editing is f**king amazing. I stopped watching [the show] because I didn’t know the person that was on-screen anymore… I wish you all could forget all these dumb-ass lies. I’ll take lie-detector tests…it will all come out the same. It’s the damn truth.”

Amber insisted that she actually went broke herself in order to provide for others. 

“I’m not here to ruin people’s lives. I did things to make sure people’s lives weren’t ruined, and houses weren’t taken away and cars and money and all these things,” she said. “I was poor, negative in the bank … and you guys say I did it for the money?”

Next, Amber told fans not to watch the new season of ‘Teen Mom: The Next Chapter’—which began airing this week— because it portrays her in a way that is not real.

“I guess you do watch some bulls**t version of me…Stop watching it then,” Amber said of the show. “Stop watching it. I would never advocate for something that shows somebody I don’t even like or know. They let [Gary] talk, talk and talk, and why do you think it is? It’s better TV guys. People want to hate me.”

Amber stated that she knows telling people to not watch the show she’s contractually obligated to support could cause problems for her. 

“I don’t know what’s going to happen but I know I’m not going to portrayed where people are saying lies about what I’ve done as a mom. I think it’s really messed up…” she said, later adding, “Either I’m going to be respected for giving half of my life and my soul or I don’t f**king want anything. Guys, there’s a reason why I left [the show] twice, and I’m telling you, I was broke. I knew I was going to be broke. But I wasn’t scared…I wasn’t going to let that man [Gary] keep using me for money as I wasn’t seeing my daughter and all this crazy stuff…

Amber then implied that Gary has extorted her for money.

“If he lawyers up, then lawyer up, but there’s going to be screenshots that I’m handing you, so you better be quiet,” she said. “I’m done. I’m not the villain.”

Elsewhere in the Live, Amber insisted that fans would never “find anyone else like” her on reality TV. She also insisted that she’s not a violent, angry person, despite how she’s been portrayed. 

“I don’t believe in physical violence, I don’t believe in yelling,” she said. “When I’m loud, I am being passionate, I promise you. When I’m going off on somebody because they’re being completely horrific and saying the nastiest things, they deserve everything that they got…

“I’ve actually really changed. I’m still the same person but I’ve really changed!” Amber insisted. “…I don’t have to prove s**t to you. You can see it! To act like you can’t is f**ked up. There’s a lot of pain.”

Gary has yet to speak out publicly about Amber’s latest claims.