If you watch Teen Mom online you know that the most recent season finale featured one of the show’s most controversial scenes to date.
Viewers were shocked to see Ryan Edwards driving to his own wedding while visibly intoxicated.
MTV has issued a statement on the incident, but the network has failed to adequately respond to fans’ questions about why it allowed such a dangerous scene to take place.
Now, a crew member who was present during the notorious incident is speaking out on condition of anonymity and defending the potentially deadly decision to let Ryan get behind the wheel:
“The reason the producers didn’t stop Ryan from driving after he was seen nodding off is because the producers would not have been able to see him nodding off,” the anonymous crew member tells The Ashley’s Reality Roundup.
“That footage (and almost all car footage) is captured on Go-Pro cameras installed on the dashboard. We do not have a live feed to watch the cast in their car, despite what some viewers think. We do not have live eyes on them the whole time we’re filming them.
“That footage is captured and watched a few days later after the producers/crew get home from the shoot. It’s edited in later. When things happen in the car, we don’t know about it until the cast tells us, or when we watch the footage later on.”
He went on to throw some mild shade at Mackenzie, insinuating that she may have made the situation worse by turning off the dash cams in the car:
“In the case of Ryan, he or Mackenzie would have had to alert us to watch the footage ASAP,” the crew member said.
“We wouldn’t have seen it happen as it was filmed. Obviously, Mackenzie unplugged the GoPros, which isn’t really allowed, but we wouldn’t even know she turned them off until later when we watched the footage.”
“People think that the production crew is just looking for footage that will get the best ratings, no matter what and that is not true at all,” the source added.
“We really do care about the safety of the cast and other people. A lot of these people on the show are our friends.”
The crew member went on to point out that even if the production staff wasn’t concerned with Ryan’s safety, workers still would have prevented him from driving for legal reasons:
“Even if you take the human decency element out of it, we care because it’s our butts on the line if something happens,” he said.
“The show would have been absolutely liable had Ryan gotten into an accident or something while filming, even if the producers were not aware that he was under the influence.
“It doesn’t matter, we are still liable. They would be risking their jobs and possibly be liable personally for allowing that to happen.”
Thousands of fans have expressed outrage on social media, and it seems unlikely that they’ll be satisfied by MTV and the production crew’s comments on the incident.
Fortunately, Edwards checked into rehab shortly after the scene was filmed.
Only time will tell if the uproar will change the way the Teen Mom franchise is filmed going forward.
