Former Teen Mom OG star Mackenzie Edwards accused Maci Bookout of using her kids to “make a buck” and vows that she’ll “never return” to the show.
Mackenzie and her husband Ryan Edwards, along with his parents Jen and Larry, were all fired from MTV back in March 2020.
At the time, Ryan’s dad Larry confirmed the news, telling The Sun, “We, the family have been let go from the show by the network. It’s unbelievable.”
Mackenzie Edwards is ‘happy to be gone’ from Teen Mom OG
Now, Mackenzie made her own statements to The Sun, and talked about life since parting ways with Teen Mom OG and whether she’d ever consider coming back to the show.
Mackenzie, who is working as a sales representative in Harrison, Tennessee, told The Sun, “Life has been great since we left Teen Mom OG.”
“You couldn’t pay me enough money to go back,” Mackenzie revealed before adding that she’s choosing to be authentic and she doesn’t miss the show. “I just can’t get down with a false narrative about our own lives and I’m happy to be gone.”
Similar to her husband Ryan’s statement to The Sun, Mackenzie also noted that her values didn’t align with MTV’s, making their split easier to handle.
“The things that I was seeing on TV didn’t match up with real life, especially in what pertained to me and Ryan.”
Mackenzie accuses Maci Bookout and Taylor McKinney of using their children ‘to make a buck’
Speaking of Maci and her husband Taylor McKinney, Mackenzie said, “I’m just done and I think that all that [Maci and Taylor] care about is money. “
Mackenzie reinforced her statement, “That’s the God’s honest truth. They’ll use their own children to make a buck and I’m not cool with that.”
Maci shares one son with Ryan, Bentley, who is 12 years old. Teen Mom OG viewers watched this season as Bentley begin to feel the effects of his parents’ animosity towards each other, as well as his dad’s absence and battle with addiction.
Mackenzie spoke of Bentley and thought Maci used her and Ryan’s son to make money.
“I don’t think it’s OK to use stuff that Bentley has got going on emotionally for a dollar,” Mackenzie admitted.
Mackenzie, who claimed Maci ignored her text attempts to reconcile, cited her values and morals and made it clear that she’ll never return to Teen Mom OG.
“I have values and I have morals and I’m just not okay with it anymore. I would work until my fingers bled before I went back,” she added.
Mackenzie and Ryan felt ‘blindsided’ by MTV’s editing
The 24-year-old mom of three talked about her and Ryan’s experience with MTV’s editing process and said they felt “blindsided” when events were portrayed differently for the network’s own “narrative.”
“Ryan and I just didn’t agree with a lot of what MTV did on the show,” Mackenzie shared. “Just as an example, after this last season we sat down at the very end, me and Ryan and Jen and Larry, and we said ‘This was the best season that we ever had, just no drama, no nothing.'”
“We thought that things were going great. We had no idea and we were just blindsided by everything when we watched the show.”
“We kind of felt that we were being used to create some narrative that we didn’t know about.”
“We were trying to make things better. Our number one goal was just to make things better for everybody.”
“Maci and Taylor are very aggressive people but they don’t like to portray that. The people who run the show hide stuff from you so you just don’t really know what’s going on.”
“They take stuff out of context and make you look like an a**hole when you were just trying to answer a basic question, not about somebody else.
Politics came into play
“The other thing with MTV is that we’re just not liberal. I have an open mind and I’m willing to listen to anyone’s point of view regardless,” Mackenzie said of her and Ryan’s political views versus MTV’s.
Ryan’s wife feels as though everyone is entitled to their own views, and no one should force their views on anyone else who doesn’t agree.
“I’m not going to push what I think down somebody’s throat and I don’t expect them to push it down mine. I don’t care how much money you’re waving in my face, I’m going to stay true to myself and I’m not going to follow behind like a little puppet.”
When it all boils down, it looks like Mackenzie is at peace with MTV’s decision to fire her and the Edwards family. And surely Maci and Taylor were pleased about Ryan’s exit from the show, so it seems like a win-win.
“I just think that leaving the show is a blessing in disguise and I couldn’t be any happier,” Mackenzie concluded.
Teen Mom OG returns on Tuesday, September 7 at 8/7c on MTV.