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MTV "Teen Mom" star Maci Bookout wants to release the animosity she has toward Ryan Edwards.
MTV star Maci Bookout confronted the negative feelings she has for her ex-boyfriend, Ryan Edwards, in season 2, episode 5 of “Teen Mom: Family Reunion.”
Life coach Cheyenne “Coach B” Bryant, the therapist on the retreat, asked the cast to participate in an activity where they literally and figuratively “buried the hatchet.” The was a ditch dug into the ground, and a handful of hatches with pens so the cast could write down their grievances and then put the hatchet into the ground.
When it was Bookout’s turn to do the experiment, she knew she had to bury the resentment she had for Edwards. The couple shares a son, 14-year-old Bentley, but Edwards hasn’t been the father to Bentley that she wanted him to be. Edwards struggles with substance abuse and has done several stints in rehab to battle his addiction.
“I want to let go of the anger I have for Ryan. But I don’t feel like I’m angry for myself. I feel like I’m angry for Bentley, so I’m not sure I can bury that,” Bookout told Bryant. “There have been times when he wanted to throw in the towel on Ryan.”
MTV then showed a flashback to an episode of “Teen Mom OG” where Bentley said he didn’t feel comfortable seeing his father and his stepmother, Mackenzie Standifer.
“You don’t want to go to your dad and Kenzie?” Bookout asks in the flashback.
“I haven’t seen him in forever. And then like, that would just be a big jump from just like not seeing him and then going like straight to his house,” Bentley answers in the clip.
Edwards, 34, and Bookout, 31, made their premiere on reality TV via MTV’s “16 & Pregnant” in 2009. After a brief engagement, they split when Bentley was a baby.
Bookout Carries Around Guilt
Bryant, 39, wanted to know if the anger she had toward Edwards caused any guilt.
“I felt like because of my choices and relationships, it just hurts everybody. Everybody that loves me hurts because of it,” Bookout answered.
Bryant encouraged Bookout to release the guilt she was holding.
“That’s the guilt, and that’s that beating yourself up and I think that that should be a part of what you’re burying,” she said.
Bookout wrote on the hatchet, and said she released “unrealistic expectations and animosity toward Ryan.”
Bryant nudged her once more to release her “self-guilt.”
“Sure thing,” Bookout said, writing another saying on the hatchet. At the end of the activity, she walked over to the hole and threw the hatchet into the ground.
Kiaya Elliot was proud of Bookout. “Good for Maci, It’s been a rollercoaster for her,” she told an MTV camera in a confessional. “Now she has a teenager. So it’s just time to move on.”
Bookout and Edwards Are in a Better Place
After years of not speaking, Bookout said she and her ex were able to make progress. She told Page Six that she now has Edwards’ phone number.
Bookout said there was a realization of how she might have sabotaged Bentley’s relationship with his father. She credited Bryant with helping her make the discovery.
“Coach B really helped because we were able to determine what role I played in the relationship or lack of relationship that Bentley and Ryan have,” she told Page Six.
Edwards and Standifer were fired from “Teen Mom OG” in 2021 after more than a decade with MTV. Moving forward, Bookout told Page Six she was relieved any type of potential reconciliation with Edwards and Standifer won’t be filmed by MTV.
The last time Edwards spoke about his sobriety, he told The Sun in September 2021 that he was three years sober.
Season 2 of “Teen Mom: Family Reunion” airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time on MTV.
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Maci Bookout Addresses ‘Animosity’ Toward Ryan Edwards