Heavy/MTV Maci Bookout's son, Bentley, isn't a little kid anymore.
“Teen Mom” star Maci Bookout celebrated her son, 14-year-old Bentley, after he competed in a high school wrestling tournament as a middle schooler.
“Benny had a wrestling season for the books,” Bookout wrote via Instagram on March 23, sharing a video of her son while he was wrestling. “He started off with his final (8th Grade) middle school seasons #BBS and then #aauwrestling.”
Bentley is Bookout’s eldest son, whom she shares with her high school boyfriend, Ryan Edwards. Edwards and Bookout appeared on the pilot episode of “16 and Pregnant” and starred in “Teen Mom” until Edwards was fired in 2021. Bookout still appears in spinoffs like “Teen Mom: The Next Chapter” and “Teen Mom: Family Reunion.”
Bookout’s youngest children — 7-year-old Jayde and 6-year-old Maverick, whom she shares with her husband, Taylor McKinney, 33 — also wrestle.
Bookout Faced Backlash for Putting Bentley on a Strict Eating Routine
Bookout faced some criticism from fans in 2020 after she put Bentley on a strict eating regimen when he was 11 years old.
At the time, Bentley said he wanted to stick to 1,000 calories. At one point during an episode of “Teen Mom,” Bookout asked her son if he ” lost [his] mind” when he said he wanted to eat grilled chicken for dinner.
“He weighs like 74-75 pounds so he’s on a very strict, good, healthy calorie diet,” Bookout said during the episode, per E! News. “Lots of water and workouts to actually cut out weight.”
Bookout clarified on Twitter that she never intended for her son to lose weight for wrestling.
“In reference to tonight’s episode-I have never and will never convince Bentley to ‘cut’ weight,” she tweeted. “After wrestling his first 2 tournaments in the 75lb class weighing in at 72-he came to me & said he wanted to wrestle at 70. I told him that’s fine, but you WILL NOT ‘cut’ weight.”
“I will lay out a healthy scheduled diet for u, u can eat salads, grilled chicken, veggies, good carbs-instead of pizza, doritos & candybars,” Bookout continued. “Through the season, he decided he didn’t like it-I told him that’s okay! U can go back to usual and wrestle at 75 which is what he did.”
Bookout Admitted She Misspoke
Nearly a year after she made her comments about Bentley “cutting” weight for wrestling, Bookout said she was in a “terrible mood” when she filmed the scene with her son.
“That was one of those scenes where I was like, ‘You were being a butthead, Maci.’ I specifically remember that day,” she told Us Weekly in 2021.
Bookout clarified that Bentley’s diet was about drinking more water, cutting out chocolate milk and junk food and eating in the morning.
“It’s a healthier lifestyle diet,” Bookout told Us Weekly. “It was not a lose weight diet. It was just so he could maintain his weight class and not have two pounds of Doritos and Snickers bars. … I’m just trying to teach Bentley like, ‘Hey, if you start eating like this, you’re going to like it. You’re going to feel better and you won’t have to starve.”