In the preview for next week’s episode of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, Gary Shirley reveals just how estranged his teenage daughter Leah really is from her mom, Amber Portwood, while also refuting Amber’s recent claims about the situation.
In a clip from the upcoming episode, Gary and wife Kristina Shirley sit down with an attorney, presumably to talk about the possibility of Kristina adopting Leah– something Leah has said that she has wanted for quite some time. During the conversation, Gary explains to the attorney that Amber has had little to no involvement in Leah’s life, particularly within the last year.
“In the past year, Amber’s seen her daughter four days,” Gary tells the attorney, who then informs Gary, “That’s deemed as abandonment.”
Gary’s comments come less than a week after Amber took to TikTok to defend herself against fans who blame her for the “abandonment issues” that 16-year-old Leah has recently opened up about on the show. Amber also fired back at Kristina claiming on a recent episode that it had been more than four months since Amber had contacted them.
While ranting on TikTok Live, Amber denied that her actions– or rather lack thereof– had resulted in Leah having any trauma and insisted that she hadn’t gone no-contact with Leah for months, as Kristina had claimed.
“I didn’t go four months no-contact with my daughter!” Amber argued, before admitting that she did stay away from Leah, but not because she wanted to.
“No, I was told to stay away,” Amber stated. “Not to stay away… but all that stuff. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I would never do that actually. I want to have my daughter with me. I would love to have my daughter with me. I would love to do mom and daughter things.”
Amber assured fans that she was being honest about the situation and maintained that she and Leah have “talked about everything from the past” already. She also insisted that Leah is only bothered because she has seen old clips of the show online, not because she actually remembers the events taking place. According to Amber, what Leah is experiencing is “not trauma,” because she “doesn’t have trauma.”
“ … She’s had a rough life, yeah. But guys, not everything is trauma,” Amber said. “And it’s not denial. You can’t call that trauma.
“I didn’t beat her,” Amber continued. “She’s traumatized about what?! No, she’s not traumatized because of me. I didn’t do anything to her like that.”
As The Ashley reported last summer, Gary shared on social media in August that Amber hadn’t seen Leah since June– the month that Amber’s then-fiancé Gary Wayt (aka Gary 2.0) went “missing” after attending the wedding of Amber’s brother, Shawn Portwood, in North Carolina.
Shortly after it was revealed in November that Gary had accused Amber of not paying child support for Leah “for years” and that he was considering taking Amber to court to get pay back payment for the money she allegedly owes (which Amber has denied, stating she has “receipts” to prove it), Amber told fans on TikTok that she was informed by Gary that she could not see Leah.
“ … not only have I tried to see my daughter, but I was told by her father that I was not allowed to come get her,” Amber claimed, before adding that viewers would see the situation play out on this season of ‘Teen Mom: The Next Chapter.’
“I can’t say anything else,” she added. “I can’t say anything else right now. Even though it’s not out yet … when you watch the show coming out and you guys will be able to see some things you probably never knew.”
Amber has yet to responds to the clip from next week’s episode.
New episodes of ‘Teen Mom: The Next Chapter’ air Thursdays on MTV
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