If you watch Teen Mom: OG online, you know this most recent season concluded with a bang.
Many fans were shocked to learn that Maci Bookout’s baby daddy, Ryan Edwards, suffered from a painkiller addiction so severe that it nearly claimed his life.
Edwards drove to his own wedding while high in the show’s scandalous season finale, and it seems one of the many people who was unaware of his addiction was his bride-to-be, Mackenzie Standifer.
Standifer took flak from fans of the show for allowing Edwards to drive while intoxicated, but on Monday night’s reunion show, she offered a compelling explanation:
She was ill-equipped to handle the situation because she had only found out about Edwards’ addiction one day prior.
And she blames her ignorance on Bookout, whom she claims knew about Ryan’s addiction, but failed to tell her about it.
Shockingly, Maci didn’t deny the accusation:
“I didn’t want to say anything that would make her feel like she couldn’t trust Ryan or their relationship wasn’t real,” she said, by way of explanation.
“I didn’t want to hurt her.”
Standifer replied with a scathing letter she’d written to Maci, which she read aloud on the show:
“Maci, you told me to my face, merely days after I had informed you about Ryan seeking help, that you had known about his problem since November,” Mackenzie read.
“That was 186 days; 400,464 hours; and 267,840 minutes that he could’ve died, and still, you said nothing. You let everyone know that you feared for his life, while concurrently exploiting Ryan and his addiction on the show.”
Standifer claimed the situation was so severe that Edwards cound have lost his life, a death, she says, for which Bookout would have been responsible:
“I had only known about it for two days before Ryan was walking into treatment. Instead of solving the problem or doing what you could to make an effort to solve it, you decided to humiliate Ryan,” she said.
She went on to accuse Maci of exploiting Ryan’s condition to make for more compelling television:
“Helping Ryan doesn’t mean talking about all of his problems on national television, it means being supportive. Not kicking someone down and respecting the privacy we all so graciously deserve,” she added.
Maci, of course, was having none of the accusations:
“You’re so full of sh-t your eyes are brown!” Bookout fired back.
She explained that she was deeply concerned for Edwards, but decided to take the issue up with him, not his then-girlfriend:
“I told him I loved him, but I couldn’t sit by and watch him kill himself,” Mackenzie explained.
“I told him when he was ready to get help to please let me know.”
It’s a case of she said-she said, and it’s up to Teen Mom fans to decide whether or not Maci did the right thing.
But we think even her biggest defenders would concede that she didn’t come off looking great on Monday’s reunion.
