Amber Portwood’s Journey: Navigating the Highs and Lows with Daughter Leah
Amber Portwood’s challenging relationship with her daughter Leah has been captured on Teen Mom throughout the years.
Portwood welcomed her daughter in 2008 during her relationship with former boyfriend Gary Shirley. They parted ways three years later, with Shirley subsequently marrying Kristina Anderson, with whom he has a daughter named Emilee.
As for Portwood, she is also the mother of son James, whom she shares with Andrew Glennon, but lost custody of in 2022 after a three-year legal battle stemming from a domestic violence incident in 2019.
Her relationship with Leah has been tumultuous over the years, largely due to Portwood’s struggles with substance abuse, mental health issues, and prior incarceration.
“I feel like I’m never going to win,” Portwood expressed during a September 2021 episode of the MTV series, stating that her daughter was “acting weird” and had “turned” against her. “I wanted us to have a great co-parenting family that I thought we had until it became strange.”
Portwood also mentioned, “This is not [Leah]. She doesn’t ignore me like this. Even if I accept responsibility for every single mistake I’ve made, it feels like it’s never sufficient.”
Continue scrolling to witness the evolution of the MTV personality’s relationship with Leah over the years:
