Stories don’t really get much sadder than the tragic tale of Valerie Fairman, former 16 and Pregnant star, and her untimely death.
And thank goodness for that — we honestly couldn’t handle anything sadder than this.
Valerie was only 23 years old when she died last week after a drug overdose. She left behind her seven-year-old daughter, Nevaeh, and several heartbroken family members and friends.
Her sister took to social media to write “Valerie you will forever be missed. I love you baby girl and I will always.”
An ex-boyfriend said “I will always miss you Valerie,” and he even got more detailed about what killed her.
“I want to tell anyone who is selling sh-t to people to stop,” he said. “we have lost too many loved ones to what you are doing. I am doing to start taking care of it.”
Several of the girls from Teen Mom also paid their respects to Valerie on social media, and MTV made a statement of its own, too.
“We are saddened by the news of Valerie Fairman’s passing,” the company said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with her family at this time.”
But according to a new interview Valerie’s family did with Daily Mail, it seems like they think MTV is ultimately to blame for her death.
If she hadn’t been on 16 and Pregnant, they claim, she’d still be alive.
Valerie’s mother, Janice Fairman, says that Valerie “was a gorgeous girl and it all went to her head.”
“She thought she could pretty much do whatever she liked after the show,” Janice reveals. “She was determined to get everything she wanted.”
“I wish she had never been on TV. It played a big part in her death. I think it messed her up big-time.”
She explains that “When we tried to put our foot down, that’s when she left home. I don’t think there was anything more we could have done to help her.”
Both Janice and Valerie’s birth mother, Beth Shepherd, believe that while Valerie has struggled with drug use for a while, the the drug that ultimately killed her was something called “pink.”
Pink is in the opioid family, it’s eight times stronger than heroin, and it’s totally legal in most states.
What a huge, depressing mess this is.
Janice says that Valerie had been “in and out of rehab for five years,” and Beth even says that “I took her to a methadone clinic a few times. But you have to want to get off drugs.”
Beth lost custody of Valerie when she was a toddler because of her own issues with addiction, but she’s been clean now for well over a decade.
“Valerie went through everything I went through,” she says.
“I was brought up in the middle of the country and I wanted some excitement so I would run off to Coatesville, which is like the big town around here. It was the same with her.”
“She told me how much she looked up to me,” Beth recalls, “and I was an inspiration to her because I had managed to get clean.”
Valerie, tragically, will never get that chance.
