Catelynn Lowell is seemingly done defending her longtime friend and Teen Mom co-star Amber Portwood.
During a Live with YouTubers Elle Bee and Rei Clarke last week, Catelynn opened up about the state of her relationship with Amber, as well as Amber’s current state of mind, both of which are not in good shape, according to Cate.
“I think she’s manic,” Catelynn said. “I’m telling you right now, she is not well…deep down, I know for a fact she’s sick.”
Catelynn stated that she has attempted to help Amber, who seems to spend the bulk majority of her days ranting and fighting on TikTok Live.
“There’s been numerous times in this journey where I have talked to Amber privately, and I’ve said, ‘Girl, I think that you really need to go somewhere. I think you need to go to an inpatient treatment facility,’” Catelynn said. “Just this past May that passed, when we were still filming [‘Next Chapter’], I reached out to her and I was like, ‘Do you like living your life like this? Are you happy?’”
Catelynn stated that she told Amber that she would even accompany her to an inpatient rehab facility.
“I was like, ‘Let’s go. I will fly with you, I will take you there. I feel like it would benefit you so much,’” Catelynn said. “And she always just denies it, so I’m just kind of at the point now where I’m like, ‘You know you’re not happy fully. You know that there’s stuff that you could work on to help you get there. I’m sick of just, I don’t know, bringing it up and you don’t want to better yourself. So, I’m just kind of like— I take a step back— and I’m just like, ‘Well…whatever.’”
Catelynn, Elle and Rei discussed how Amber’s life is currently on “repeat,” consisting of her staying up seemingly for days while on TikTok Live ranting about things including her ‘Teen Mom’ co-stars, her baby daddy
As ‘Teen Mom’ fans are aware, Amber has been diagnosed with multiple mental health disorders, which she claims to take medication for. However, Catelynn feels that this is not enough to help Amber.
“Medicine is not the fix for it all,” she said. “It’s a stepping stone to fix it but you have to go to talk therapy…Medicine, yeah, it’s a step in the right direction but you have to dig down deep to be like, ‘Where does this all come from? Why do I act the way that I do?’”
“…I think she just needs serious, intense inpatient treatment therapy, for sure,” Catelynn added of Amber.
During the Live, Catelynn also indicated that she’s upset that Amber continues to bash her and their co-star
“You want to go online and talk crap about me and Maci when we’ve been the two people that have literally tried to help you this whole time,” Catelynn said. “We have tried to show you like, ‘Hey, this is what you could do if you want to do better.’ So, I’m kind of over it…I think it gets annoying when you see that someone could benefit from it so much and they know deep down that they would too, and they just don’t want to do it for themselves.
“I’m wiping my hands,” Cate added.
As The Ashley told you in March, Amber went off on Cate and Maci during a TikTok Live rant, flipping them off on-camera and implying that they were bad friends to her.
Days later, Amber was back on TikTok Live apologizing to Maci and Catelynn and explaining that she thought they were siding with her nemesis Gary
During the Live last week, Catelynn also addressed recent claims made on TikTok Live by her co-star and former (?) friend Amber Portwood. As The Ashley told you, Amber has been squawking that her quitting the show earlier this year is the reason ‘Next Chapter’ got cancelled, and that she played a large part in the ‘Teen Mom’ cast “losing their jobs.”
“All of that is not factual,” Catelynn said of Amber’s claims. “She’s not the one paying the bigwigs that ran our show who are still there getting paid.”
Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay opens up about her exit from the Mormon church in the forthcoming three-part Bravo documentary Surviving Mormonism, in which she also sheds lights on divisive topics including conversion therapy.
The reality star, 51, departed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when she joined the cast of the Bravo series in 2020.
The Carmel-by-the-Sea, California-born TV personality told People on Tuesday that she felt spiritually fulfilled by putting together the documentary about the church.
‘I never thought that being an antagonist to my faith and identity and family and community would feel this empowering and fulfilling, but it does,’ the Brigham Young University alum said.
Gay said she felt ‘compelled to do more’ to spread awareness toward issues she feels needs the public’s attention.
The Bravo docuseries also features interviews conducted with former members of the Mormon church.
‘I feel very, very precious about these survivors, about their willingness to share with me,’ Gay said. ‘They’re telling a Real Housewife their darkest secrets.
‘That takes a leap of faith, and I feel such a kinship to them.’
Gay credited the 2016 Leah Remini doc Scientology and the Aftermath as an inspiration in turning her own personal experience with the Mormon church into a documentary.
‘I thought what she did was so important and, in a legitimate way, giving visibility and a platform to voices that were silenced,’ Gay said. ‘That was very similar to my experience when I left the Mormon church.’
Gay said she ‘didn’t really realize how similar that experience was until [she] left.’
Gay said she especially appreciated Remini’s work in looking back on her own experiences with faith, and how she couldn’t necessarily see the entirety of the situation.
‘When I was in it, rainbows and unicorns, great,’ Gay said. ‘But when you leave and when you draw a line in the sand, I recognized and heard for the first time really just an onslaught of people’s experiences that were about surviving Mormonism.’
Gay continued: ‘If you’re in it, you don’t hear of those stories. You don’t speak of them. No one talks about them.
‘They are sidelined and silenced and made to disappear. The second you leave, you’re hearing it for the first time. I was hearing criticisms of the church for the first time.’
Gay said last month in an Instagram post that she was ‘deeply grateful to the brave participants who shared their stories of faith and survival for this docuseries. I know when you hear them you will feel the same.’
The reality star told People that she felt ostracized upon departing the religious institution.
She has past opened up about that experience in her books Bad Mormon (2023) and Good Time Girl (2024).
Gay, upon her departure from the church, said she ‘felt obligated’ and ‘a deep responsibility’ to share stories of experiences she had while an active member.
‘Leaving has taught me and exposed me to so many people that had stories to tell and wanted to share that with me,’ Gay said.
She added, ‘I suddenly had this opportunity to meet people from all over the world that wanted to share their stories with me, and that felt very powerful and inspiring.’
Gay stressed to People that she wasn’t trying to slam the institution, but just rather shed light on crucial things that have happened on their watch.
‘I don’t think this is a show about tearing down the church,’ Gay said. ‘I think this is a show about giving space to survivors that experience the shadow side of something that we all find fascinating, but no one ever talks about.
‘It’s not about the church. It’s about what people that survived the church have to say now.’
Said Gay: ‘I think the church should be worried about the show because the church says that they stand for truth and righteousness and love and humanity.’
Surviving Mormonism with Heather Gay is slated to debut Tuesday on Bravo at 9:45 p.m. ET.