Amber Portwood’s former fiancé Gary “Gary 2.0” Wayt is spilling the tea on the events leading up to his split from the Teen Mom star– including the details behind that awkward couch proposal fans saw on Teen Mom: The Next Chapter and the reason he ghosted Amber during the couple’s ill-fated trip to North Carolina in June.
As you may remember, it was reported at the beginning of June that Amber and Gary 2.0 were officially engaged after less than a year of dating. While few details about the proposal were revealed at the time, viewers got to watch Gary 2.0 pop the question (seemingly out of nowhere) on ‘Teen Mom: The Next Chapter,’ as Amber sat on her trusty couch joined by co-stars Catelynn Lowell and Maci Bookout, who just happened to be in Indiana visiting her at the time.
While Gary 2.0’s living room love declaration was undoubtedly one of the most-awkward marriage proposals to occur on ‘Teen Mom’ (and that’s saying something!), Gary revealed to the @TeenMomFanz Instagram page this week that MTV not only “staged” the proposal, but that he didn’t even have to fork up any money to pay for his (almost) bride’s bling.
Despite MTV allegedly pushing him to get on one knee, Gary 2.0 insists his proposal “was real, so to speak,” even though Gary claims it wasn’t his idea to ask Amber to be his wife.
“ … It was staged by the show and it wasn’t my idea to propose,” he said. “I wasn’t ready for that next step but I agreed to it to keep her happy. I thought that’s what I wanted. Yeah … it was real, we were engaged. It just wasn’t genuine.”
Though Gary didn’t reveal who purchased Amber’s engagement ring, he confirmed that it wasn’t him– a statement that conflicts with initial reports by Us Weekly that Gary 2.0 presented Amber with a ring crafted from “a family stone that was reset into a new ring.”
As The Ashley previously told you, just days after news of the couple’s engagement went public, it was revealed that Gary had disappeared while he and Amber were in North Carolina attending the wedding of Amber’s brother, Shawn Portwood. In the days following the 39-year-old’s disappearance, Amber tearfully begged fans to pray for her missing fiancé, whom she claimed stormed out of their vacation rental without his phone and without contacting her or his family. The search for Gary 2.0 lasted several days– during which Gary was officially listed as a missing person in the state of North Carolina– before Gary was spotted in Oklahoma and New Mexico. He later contacted police to let them know he was “missing” by choice and not in any danger.
When asked to explain what happened leading up to his “disappearance,” Gary 2.0 told @TeenMomFanz that after Amber’s brother’s wedding, he and Amber returned to their Airbnb “already intoxicated,” at which point the couple proceeded to get into an argument that Gary 2.0 claims “went from bad to worse.”
“We had a conversation days before about my family not being happy with her criminal record,” he explained. “Because of us drinking, Amber brought up the situation and started a toxic fight with me. I tried … I told her, ‘We are intoxicated. Let’s talk tomorrow.’ But she wanted to talk now.
“When the toxic fight went from bad to worse I knew I was going to leave,” he continued.
Amber apparently sensed that Gary 2.0 was planning to hit the road, so she allegedly held on to his possessions to keep him from leaving.
“That’s when [Amber] found my cell phone, jDubb earbuds, wallet and … I think even my toothbrush and deodorant and would not give them to me,” Gary said.
According to Gary, he determined at that moment that he “had no other choice but to become a missing person.” Gary mentioned that he had also experienced Amber’s “manic episodes” prior to this incident and “was tired of them.”
“I told Amber it was not a good idea to drink but she does her own thing,” he said. “With everything with my family and now the problems with me and her, I just left. It was the right decision looking back.”
As The Ashley previously told you, Amber and Gary 2.0’s engagement officially ended in late June after the former couch companions finally communicated. Just two months later, it was reported that Gary 2.0 was engaged yet again, after proposing to the new lady in his life while at a restaurant in Seattle, Washington.
Amber has yet to respond to Gary 2.0’s recent claims.
