Looking back. Jo Rivera spoke candidly about the different way he’d approach his and Kailyn Lowry’s custody battle if he could go back in time.
“I didn’t fight hard enough,” the New Jersey native, 29, said during the Tuesday, November 24, episode of his ex’s “Baby Mama No Drama” podcast. “Like, I settled many times outside of court. … I never actually let a judge or anyone hear what I had to say.”
The real estate agent added that there was “no reason” that he and the A Letter of Love author shouldn’t have had 50/50 custody of their now-10-year-old son, Isaac.
“I don’t feel like there was ever any reason for him not to be with me,” Rivera explained. “I was young, I was naive, I didn’t know my rights, what I deserved to have, what my son deserve[d] to have. I was just trying to get what I could.”
He and the “Coffee Convos” podcast cohost welcomed their son in 2010 when they were 18 and 17, respectively. (Lowry went on to give birth to Lincoln, 7, with Javi Marroquin, followed by Lux, 3, and Creed, 3 months, with Chris Lopez.)
“It was tough for me, a young kid with a kid trying to just have what I thought was a natural-born right which is to be with my son,” Rivera told the Pothead Haircare creator on Tuesday. “Something so simple that you would think is so simple but I just didn’t, there was no recourse other than me hiring a lawyer and fighting as hard as I could. And I couldn’t imagine someone who didn’t have the resources that I had because I was blessed enough to be financially stable at that time when I really had to start getting into these fights because if not, Kail would have just outspent me. I mean, that’s a thing. People need to understand that.”
He concluded, “If you don’t have the representation or the knowledge, someone can just really just fight harder than you because they have more money and it’s true.”
In a September Teen Mom 2 episode, Lowry opened up about coparenting with Rivera, saying they “both ultimately have the same goal for Isaac.” The Pennsylvania native explained at the time: “We both want him to be a happy, successful, stable adult.”
