To put it in kids’ terms, Teen Mom OG is preschool compared to Teen Mom 2. The second group of young MTV mothers returned to our small screens on Thursday, July 9, in the Season 6 premiere of the hit reality show.
Jenelle Evans, Kailyn Lowry, Chelsea Houska, and Leah Messer are all back, and their drama has graduated from basic to severe. With three custody battles, one cheating scandal, and plenty of fake tanner, the show didn’t disappoint.
Here’s where each of the girls’ stories began:
Jenelle Evans
Fresh off of welcoming baby Kaiser with her boyfriend Nathan Griffith, everyone’s favorite North Carolina native was trying to get her life back on track, which included getting back custody of her son Jace from her mom, Barbara Evans.
“I gotta do what I gotta do, I mean, he’s my son,” Jenelle told Nathan. “I’m not going to wait forever.”
But Babs was more hesitant than ever to hand over Jace, mostly because she doesn’t trust Nathan, who was been arrested and accused of having a drinking problem.
Things came to a head when Nathan surprised Jenelle with a romantic getaway to St. Thomas for her birthday. When the excited mother of two called Barbara to tell her the news, the boys’ grandmother was upset that she hadn’t been asked to take care of baby Kaiser. The overly verbal Babs wouldn’t let Jenelle get a word in edgewise, and she resorted to her favorite tactic: Hanging up the phone.
Leah Messer
With three kids, an ongoing custody battle with her ex-husband Corey Simms, and a strained relationship with her often-gone husband, Jeremy Calvert, Leah Messer had her hands full in the premiere.
She was relieved to finally get a dinner alone with her sweetheart, but things quickly turned sour when she tried to convince him to go to counseling to work on their marriage.
“You have to set work aside and put your family first for once,” Leah begged. “Even if you had the most money in the world, you would still put your job before us.”
The conversation didn’t go well and Jeremy got up and walked out. Before dessert, no less!
But Leah had bigger fish to fry, attending the final court date in her emotional custody battle with Corey over their twin daughters. Corey wanted to keep the girls during the week and have them visit Leah on the weekends. But ultimately, the overjoyed mom won and got to host her girls full-time.
Later, when dropping off her cranky daughters, Leah confronted Corey about the custody case, which he claimed wasn’t meant to be a personal attack.
“I can’t say that I don’t have hard feelings,” she admitted. “Being called an incompetent mother, that was hurtful.” Umm, duh.
Chelsea Houska
Get ready for Adam Lind is a Creep, episode one million! That’s right, after years of custody battles, Chelsea was still fighting with her ex over their daughter, Aubree. Her jailbird former boyfriend declared that he wanted 50/50 custody of the adorable little girl, which Chelsea wasn’t having.
It was no wonder Chelsea was against the idea, considering her ex was just behind bars for domestic stalking and owed her a significant amount of child support. Chelsea enlisted help from an unlikely source — Adam’s ex-girlfriend Taylor, who was once at odds with the beauty school grad.
Thankfully, Taylor had seen the error of her ways, and after getting served similar papers for her own daughter, Paislee, agreed to share her lawyer with Chelsea in the upcoming custody battle. Scorned women unite!
On the bright side, Chelsea had a new man in her life, Cole DeBoer, and this hunky stud was great with her little girl.
“He’s mine for Christmas!” Aubree declared. Chelsea might have her hands full with that one!
Kailyn Lowry
All was not well in Delaware when we peeked in on Kailyn and her hubby, Javi Marroquin. The pair, who were going to therapy to mend their torn marriage, were openly shouting at one another in front of their friends. Talk about awk!
When Kailyn brought up an out-of-town concert that she had planned months ago with her pals, Javi admitted, “I get mad, and I don’t want you to go because sometimes I feel like you have fun with your friends but you don’t have fun with me.”
And that certainly wasn’t the end of the fight. Javi blew up when he saw a text between Kailyn and a boy from her school.
“Someone texted me, ‘Good morning and do I have class?’ and now I’m cheating on him and I’m a liar,” a tearful Kailyn explained to her horrified friend.
When she tried to talk it out with Javi he declared, “Get out of my face. The conversation’s done, leave the room.” Not cool, bro.
Javi’s anger resulted in Kailyn not being able to go to the concert, and many shots of the Teen Mom crying. (In case you’re overly distraught, read Us Weekly’s exclusive interview with Kailyn on the current status of her relationship with Javi now!)
Tell Us: What did you think of the Teen Mom 2 premiere?
Teen Mom 2 airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on MTV.
