“With my relationship with my mom, I hope that we can, like, still have maybe speaking terms and stuff but I feel like that’s mostly just for the sake of James,” Leah told the cameras.
Amber Portwood’s daughter Leah is trying to work through her relationship with her mom following her birthday dinner blowout.
On Thursday’s all-new Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, Leah grappled with the aftermath as she and her dad, Gary Shirley, got candid about their complex family dynamic.
“I’m trying hard to, you know, co-parent and I’m trying hard to keep Amber fresh here and a relationship with her daughter,” Gary said, sitting next to his teenage daughter.
Leah, meanwhile, said that at this point, she was only interested in maintaining a relationship with her mom for her little brother, James’ sake. Amber shares the 5-year-old with ex, Andrew Glennon.
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Amber Portwood Gets in Blowout Fight With Ex Gary at Daughter’s Birthday Dinner, Leaving Leah In Tears
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“With my relationship with my mom, I hope that we can, like, still have maybe speaking terms and stuff but I feel like that’s mostly just for the sake of James,” she said.
Leah continued wiping the tears away from her eyes, “Because, like, he’s my brother, and I would definitely push for a relationship with him, and that’s basically my only way to see him right now, is through her, so I’m hoping for just, like, a mature relationship together.”
While Gary attempted to meet up with Amber so that Leah could see James, Amber revealed later in the episode that it “didn’t work out.”
“I felt bad that Leah was feeling some type of way but I couldn’t understand how she was feeling because y’all are 25 minutes away and she hasn’t tried to come hang, nothing,” Amber said.
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Amber Portwood Slammed by Teen Mom Costars, Viewers After Fight Makes Daughter Leah Cry on Birthday
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“My son, he’s been in my life more than she has and he lives in California. So what does that tell you? Where’s Leah? Obviously it’s not me,” she added, seemingly suggesting that maybe she’s not the problem in their otherwise rocky relationship.
“How the f–k am I seeing my son all the way in California but I can’t see my daughter down the street?” Amber wondered aloud. “I was hurt and I’m tired of being hurt.”
The internet seemed to think it was the other way around, however, following last week’s episode, which saw Amber and Gary get into a fight after she showed up late to Leah’s birthday dinner.
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But her tardiness was only a blip in the equation that night, with Amber calling her daughter a “dick,” and chastising the teen’s “attitude,” and Gary and Amber arguing over their drastically different approaches to parenting.
Elsewhere in the episode, Leah expressed her disappointment over the way the night turned out, telling her dad, and stepmom, Kristina, that she wasn’t going to pretend that everything was “fine” when it clearly wasn’t.
While Leah shared that her mom did reach out to dinner after the dinner, she said the message failed to include an apology, something the 15-year-old was expecting after being left in tears on her birthday.
“I don’t know, maybe an apology? Or Something where she can accept the fact that it’s her fault,” Leah said when asked what she was expecting from the message. “I don’t know why she had to do that on my birthday.”
Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, airing Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. ET on MTV.
