Amber Portwood Responds to Brother’s Absent Mother Claim

Amber & Bubby

MTV "Teen Mom OG" star Amber Portwood received some backlash when she talked to her brother, Shawn "Bubby" Portwood, about her strained relationship with daughter Leah.

Teen Mom OG star Amber Portwood received some backlash when she talked to her brother, Shawn “Bubby” Portwood, about her strained relationship with Leah, the 12-year-old daughter she shares with ex-boyfriend Gary Shirley. Amber maintained that she’s been a prominent figure in Leah’s life, but Bubby argued that she was “absent” for many years while Leah was growing up with Gary and his wife Kristina Shirley as her main parental figures. Amber was not pleased when Bubby took Leah’s side and double-downed on her claim that she’s been a “damn good mom.”

“I didn’t go to Leah’s birthday party because I really wanted to spend time together; just the two of us,” she said in a voice-over for the March 30 episode of Teen Mom OG. “I feel that’s the best way to repair our relationship.”

She then FaceTimed her brother from her home in Indiana. “I don’t know if you know but me and Leah [are] having problems and she told me things … how she felt about growing up,” Amber, 30, told her older brother. “Things that she didn’t like. Things that she didn’t understand whatsoever. Leah thinks that I just missed her birthday party but I would like to do something just alone with her and nobody’s responding.”

“She told me she was independent. There were things she was telling me that you would have f**king flipped,” the MTV personality continued. “I told her I would give her some time.”

Bubby came to the conversation from Leah’s point of view, asking: “What about the pain that she’s experienced over the past 12 years when she’s had a mom that’s been absent?”

Amber denied not being there for her daughter. “I wasn’t absent. At all. Any point. And in fact, I took care of her my damn self before I went to f**king prison,” she said.


Bubby Hinted That Amber Was ‘Absent’ Because of Her Ex

Bubby briefly mentioned Amber’s previous relationship with ex-boyfriend Andrew Glennon, with whom she shares 2-year-old son James.

“Well, you were kind of absent,” Bubby told Amber. “You said it at the beginning of this conversation.”

Amber deflected Bubby’s accusation for a second time. “I can’t do anything about what any other ex was doing,” the Teen Mom OG star said. “I’ll be absent if it keeps her away from sh*t she doesn’t need to be around. I’ll be absent. But I’m not absent.”

Bubby insinuated that Amber should try harder to mend her fractured relationship with Leah. “You cannot be mad at her,” he told his sister. “You just said she made you feel a certain way. Maybe she just feels like she’s not getting enough attention from you… I did hear from Gary that Leah had mentioned that she wanted to do something with you outside of the cameras.”

According to Amber, she has tried to make plans to see Leah without MTV cameras around. “I was there every single week, a couple of times a week, or every mother f***ing week and if I wasn’t there it was because I was sick,” she said.

“I’ve already been there without the cameras. I’ve already done all that. And they can keep running their f***ing mouths behind my back,” Amber continued. “They can keep doing that. That’s what’s going on. Gary and Kristina did not do their part is all I gotta say. They did not do their part on what they had said to her. They told her lies [about] some things.”


Bubby Said It Was Up to Amber to Fix Things

Amber’s brother said it was up to her to fix things with Leah; that even if Gary and Kristina are speaking poorly about Amber, she needs to do everything possible to make those lies seem untrue.

“Maybe [Leah] doesn’t think it’s enough so you have to come up with a solution,” Bubby told Amber. “You have to make it so that even if [Gary and Kristina are] trying to influence her there’s no question in her mind. It takes a lot of work to make up for 12 years… Maybe [Leah] wanted you to realize you weren’t there as much as [you say].”

Amber finished the conversation by threatening her 12-year-old. “I want [Leah] to know that we do have a bond and she will miss me if I don’t come over the way that I used to,” Amber told her brother. “I want her to understand. Don’t look at your f***ing mother and say, ‘I don’t have a bond with you.'”

To find out what happens next, don’t miss Teen Mom OG when it airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time on MTV.

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