MTV Mackenzie Edwards found herself in an awkward situation when she attempted to mock "Teen Mom OG" star Maci Bookout.
Mackenzie Edwards found herself in an awkward situation when she attempted to mock Teen Mom OG star Maci Bookout. Mackenzie, the wife of Maci’s ex-boyfriend Ryan Edwards, laughed at a meme that showed Ryan as Joe Exotic, the former zoo operator convicted felon who has a vendetta against big-cat rights activist Carole Baskin.
As documented on the Netflix series Tiger King, Joe Exotic, also known as Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, has a longstanding feud with Baskin. He regularly referred to her as “that b****” and blamed most of his problems on the non-profit animal sanctuary owner.
Teen Mom fans saw some similarities between Joe Exotic and Ryan since the Edwards have blamed Maci for their strained relationship with 12-year-old Bentley, the son Maci and Ryan share together. They created a meme that placed Ryan’s face over Joe’s and inserted Maci’s name where Carole’s appeared. It then read, “That B****, Maci Bookout.”
It went viral on Reddit, garnering more than 1,700 upvotes from followers, and made its way to Instagram where Mackenzie saw it. She laughed and tagged her husband in the post, as noted by The Sun, but eventually deleted her response. Some fans assumed Mackenzie didn’t get the joke while others assumed she just didn’t want people to see her comment.
The Edwards have long feuded with Maci over visitation of Bentley. Their battle reached its pinnacle last month when all the Edwards — Ryan and Mackenzie, as well as his parents Jen and Larry — were fired from Teen Mom OG following a bitter blowup at the season nine reunion.
Ryan Agreed to Go to Therapy With Bentley
At the beginning of season nine, Bentley told Maci that he didn’t want to see his father unless they started to work on some of their issues in therapy. Bentley started counseling alone — at the advice of his therapist — but it took more than a month for Ryan to contact the counselor.
The season finale showed Ryan’s first session with Dr. Ed, with the Tennessee father telling Mackenzie the session went well. “My goal for this is just to get the truth out, the good, bad and the ugly, even if it’s something about me that maybe will be hard to tell him, that way, whether he believes it or not, at least he’s heard it and once you hear it you can never unhear it so, it’ll always be in the back of his mind,” Ryan told Mackenzie. ” Hopefully it’ll work out.”
“I told him to keep rolling with it,” Ryan said about continuing with therapy. “I was really impressed. I can’t believe the conversations went on for an hour and he was really easy to talk to.”
Maci’s Husband Doesn’t Trust Bentley With Ryan
Even though Ryan started to go to therapy with Dr. Ed, Maci’s husband Taylor McKinney wasn’t convinced that it was healthy for Bentley to be around his biological father. He suggested Ryan start taking drug tests before seeing the 12-year-old, but Maci wasn’t ready to make that demand.
“I’d be nervous to get excited about anything like that,” Taylor said about Ryan starting counseling. “He doesn’t really stick to anything… He’s like a dark cloud.”
Maci’s main concern was Bentley and his feelings. “That’s just a bridge we’ll cross when we get there. I’m just worried about Bentley right now,” she said. “Therapy is a thing where if you do it once, you feel relieved. After that, I’m gonna do it again maybe. We’ll see. It’s a step.”
To find out what happens next, don’t miss the season nine reunion of Teen Mom OG when it airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time on MTV.