After allegedly receiving a threatening phone call from her ex Ryan Edwards, Maci Bookout and her husband, Taylor McKinney, felt like they only had one option: filing a restraining order against the father of her oldest child, Bentley.
“It was hard, like, as far is the decision goes, but at the same time it was necessary,” the 27-year-old MTV star told Us Weekly exclusively. “Especially after considering everything that, you know, has gone on and happened and everything, like, leading up to that point. It was kind of our only option.”
Us confirmed in May that Bookout, McKinney, and their two children — Jayde, 3, and Maverick, 2 — were granted restraining orders against 30-year-old Edwards. According to the court documents previously obtained by Radar Online, the reality TV personality claimed Edwards “showed up [to Bentley’s baseball game] under the influence of heroin and got in my face, yelling and threatening to hurt me.” McKinney also alleged that Edwards threatened to “put a bullet” in his head.
“It’s an unfortunate situation, but sometimes I think things like that have to happen for things to change or get better,” Bookout told Us. “You’ve got to hit the lows to get back up.”
Teen Mom OG gave viewers a first glimpse of Bookout and McKinney dealing with Edwards, who was taken into custody twice in 2018 for previous charges related to his 2017 heroin arrest, in the trailer for season 8.
“Ryan called me in a fit of rage,” McKinney tells his wife, who suggests they call the police, in the clip.
Bookout teased to Us how the drama will play out on the MTV docuseries, but couldn’t really speak to what the Edwards family filmed. [Edwards and his wife, Mackenzie Standifer, quit the series in July, but his parents, Jen and Larry Edwards, are still expected to appear.]
“It’s definitely a lot of Bentley, who is now moving into more like the young man age instead of just kid-child, you know?” she said. “A lot of things happening with [our company] TTM and we are also looking for houses and hoping to move, yeah, so there’s a lot going on.”
Bookout added that she and McKinney have “stopped worrying about Ryan and his situation.”
“I mean it’s not like we don’t care, but we can’t live our lives constantly thinking about, worrying or questioning a grown man,” she explained. “I mean, it’s not what we want our lives to be and so we know what we know and it’s up to the other side to know what they want to know.”
Teen Mom OG season 8 premieres on MTV Monday, October 1, at 9 p.m. ET.
