In a recent interview with E! News, the Teen Mom star, 33, talked about Amanda Conner, who recently got engaged to the Edwards, with whom Bookout shares a 16-year old son, Bentley. Bookout gushed over Conner and shared she is happy to have her as part of their blended family.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(742x196:744x198)/maci-bookout-ryan-edwards-amanda-conner-012825-ec78782d5ec24ade97b4854061db613f.jpg)
"She has been a game-changer, honestly," she told the outlet. "We're very close friends and she's just got really great energy. She's very authentic and she genuinely loves and cares about Ryan and Bentley so obviously that's all I could ever ask for."
"Even my other two kids, they love her and her son, so having her around has been wonderful,” Bookout added of the two children she shares with her husband Taylor McKinney and Conner’s son from a previous relationship.
In addition to their engagement, Conner and Edwards are also expecting a baby in the spring. Bookout has expressed her excitement for the addition, even volunteering to babysit in the comments of their announcement post, but she joked that Bentley is “ready for this to be the last sibling.”
After rising to fame for her teen pregnancy with Bentley on 16 and Pregnant, Bookout shared that she does not shy away from talking about safe sex with her kids as they get older.
"We've always had those open communications," Bookout said. "So they're definitely not as awkward as they were in the beginning. I know it sounds odd, but they're normal."
Bookout has documented her life since Bentley’s birth on the MTV hits Teen Mom and later Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, and her co-parenting journey with Edwards hasn’t always gone smoothly. Edwards has struggled with sobriety for many years, leading to Bookout filing a restraining order against him in 2018 and his overdose in 2023, but now, she told E! that things are looking up.
"We are still doing really well," she shared. "I honestly think it's gotten here because there was no pressure. We've let it naturally take its course and just our communication's better."
"I think Ryan being sober and healthy has created a fresh air for us to breathe in," she continued. "But we also made a commitment to try and stay respectful and to maintain communication even if we're feeling some type of way."
She noted that Bentley has also benefited from therapy after watching his dad go through the ups and downs of sobriety and legal struggles.
"Therapy and honestly doing work on myself and understanding the responsibility and the roles that I play, but also understanding what is not my responsibility,” Bookout explained. “You can almost even physically see how much lighter it is for him. There's no tension or awkwardness. It's much less of a chore for all of us, to be honest."
