Farrah Abraham is calling out MTV for allegedly failing to provide mental health support to Teen Mom cast members and families, despite the former Teen Mom OG star revealing that the network provided this help to her years ago.
On a recent episode of former Teen Mom 2 star Kail Lowry’s Barely Famous podcast, Farrah and Kail discussed how some things (in this case, book deals) may have been handled differently throughout the franchise. During the conversation, Farrah also went on to mention the “disparity” between the cast when it comes to mental health support– something Farrah claims she “always advocated” for over the years.
“There’s something that’s not equal, there’s something that’s not right, when I see from [‘Teen Mom] OG’ to another level of ‘Teen Mom’ coming in, and also the other women on ‘Teen Mom’ from the franchise internationally that have reached out to me,” Farrah said, in her signature “Farrah Speak” mode. “I feel like they’ve just been dropped in disarray … ,”
“I think that I’ve always advocated when I’ve been hired, fired, fired, hired, like, back and forth, I’m like, there has to be something that helps people bounce back and go into life in a normal way,” she said.
Farrah, who was fired from ‘Teen Mom OG’ in 2017 but later returned to terrorize the franchise in 2022 for a brief stint on Teen Mom Family Reunion, credited the time she spent in an intensive trauma healing center back in 2022 for helping her “bounce back,” before revealing that MTV actually paid for her to receive this support.
“ … MTV did pay for [it] after I was fired I think like, three times, and then they needed me back for their family boot camp thing to be picked up,” Farrah said, referring to ‘Teen Mom: Family Reunion.’
Farrah then spoke about why she decided to seek this treatment, explaining that she couldn’t keep returning to the ‘Teen Mom’ franchise “and getting attacked.”
“ … It’s like, financial abuse, it’s work abuse, it’s stress on someone’s mental and identity wears,” she said. “And lots of people on this show have disabilities, so it definitely affects people.”
According to Farrah, intensive trauma therapy is something that should be offered to moms across the ‘Teen Mom’ franchise, as well as to their children, partners and parents.
“ … There’s just a history of people not believing in mental health here and that is very toxic in a work environment,” she said. “But I do feel like the disparity of different generations of filming and teen moms, there’s a lack of support completely throughout the entire franchise.”
Farrah confirmed that she was offered the opportunity to seek treatment at a facility, but implied that it was only because she had pushed for it to happen. She also told Kail that she’s “pretty much no longer allowed to be brought back” to the ‘Teen Mom’ franchise because she’s “intelligent now.”
Meanwhile, Kail, who announced she was leaving ‘Teen Mom 2’ in 2022, told Farrah that in her experience with the franchise, “you have to go beg for help, it’s not just offered.”
“Yeah, I don’t beg,” Farrah replied. “I’m pretty strong with my stuff … I’m tired of repeating [myself]. It’s not if I’m broke, it’s not if I’m wealthy. It’s this is wrong, we need to fix it.
“My identity has taken a huge hit over and over and over again,” she continued. “And how to do you fix that? It’s recovery skills, it’s not money.”
The Ashley would like to note here that, over the years, MTV has, indeed, paid for many of its cast members— including Leah Messer, Amber Portwood, Jenelle Evans and others— to go to rehab and/or mental health facilities. However, those incidents were not standard, and, from what The Ashley was told, were done on an individual “as needed” basis. (As The Ashley told you back in 2015, the show’s producers basically forced Leah into a drug rehab, under the guise of her going to a mental health facility, by threatening to boot her from ‘Teen Mom 2.’)
Still, mental health therapy was not normally offered or facilitated for the cast members and their relatives. The Ashley would also like to note that this is the case on most reality TV shows, where cast members acknowledge when signing their contracts that they could, for instance, suffer emotional distress or mental illness as a result of being on the show. They state that they are aware of this when they sign their contracts.
Since the cast members are independent contractors (and not employees), they are not given health insurance through the show, and the show has no obligation to provide any type of mental health services or counseling.
