Bulletproof (11 page)

The idea that the shows glamorized teen pregnancy is something I’ve heard countless times. It was always astonishing to me that anyone could watch the show and not see how brutal and sad it was. Many of the struggles depicted on the show were heart-wrenching. Fortunately, most people do seem to get that. The ones who watch the shows and come away thinking, “Wow, I really want to be a teen mom now” are an extreme minority compared to the rest. There was never anything on that show that could have been interpreted by any reasonable person as an advertisement in favor of teen pregnancy.

The show had an impact on my personal life, too. It definitely influenced my relationships, especially with Ryan. The dads who appeared on the show got a lot of attention, too, and it was the kind of attention that made it seem a lot more fun to be absent as a boyfriend and a dad. Then there’s the fact that when you watch the show after filming, you see conversations happen that you weren’t there for. It’s sort of like getting to see what people are saying behind your back. That definitely created a wedge that was difficult to look beyond, and not just with Ryan. We all made an effort not to let it affect us, but it did. With a documentary series, the producers and crew get to pack up and go back home to their lives when work is done. But reality continues when the cameras are gone. The people being featured have to deal with the consequences of what’s been filmed, what’s been said, and what’s been started. It’s very difficult to keep all that in check.

Even the process of making friends changed after I started appearing on the show. Going out and meeting people, I had to learn the difference between people who wanted to get to know me as a person and people who wanted to be friends with “Maci from
Teen Mom
.” Believe it or not, there are plenty of the second kind out there. But I got used to it pretty quickly, and eventually I could tell right off the bat who was who.

That was one more way Nashville made it easier for me to stretch my limbs and kind of smooth out my steering. In Nashville I had a good circle of friends I already trusted for understanding and support, including my best friend, Kyle.

Little by little, I started to straighten things out. But, again, the loneliness got worse before it got better. In fact, at first I felt more alone than ever. The main part was still the nights when I was alone and Bentley had gone to sleep. I’d sit up at nine or ten all alone and start feeling sorry for myself. But I didn’t run from it. I tried to remind myself how many women out there would love to be a mom, even a single mom, and especially with a kid like Bentley. He always inspired me to fight for positivity, too. I never let myself get emotional in front of him. I couldn’t be a miserable mom. I wouldn’t. I was always telling myself, “You have to make it through this and be happy, because Bentley needs you to be.”

What helped the most was being self-aware. Eventually I got to a point where when I started feeling lonely, I recognized it as a mood I was in and didn’t let it take over my mind. It still sucked, but instead of feeling so deeply sad, I learned not to let it get me down. I wasn’t a victim to it anymore. I finally started to feel like I could handle it.

CHAPTER 15:

12 THINGS YOU LEARN AS A REALITY TV STAR

1. You stop caring what you look like on camera.

In an everyday situation, I consider myself to be low-maintenance. But when I knew I was going to be on TV, of course I tried a little harder. The first few times we filmed for
16 & Pregnant
, I was putting on makeup, doing my hair, and laying out my outfits the night before. That unraveled quickly. When you’re filming a documentary or reality TV and the point is to forget the cameras aren’t there, you stop going out of your way to be ready for a close-up. By the third or fourth time we filmed, I was back to my usual no-makeup state. I probably didn’t even brush my hair. After that, whether the cameras were on or not, I was probably in jeans and a tee shirt.

2. Your show makes all your first impressions for you.

As they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. It’s a little nerve-wracking to think about that after you’ve put your life and your personality on display for millions of people. Every time you meet someone who’s seen you on TV, you know they’ve already formed at least some trace of an opinion by the time they see you in person. It’s hard to feel like you can make that important first impression when you meet someone new, because it feels like you’ve already made it on half the world. And there are no take-backs.

3. You never get used to being approached by strangers.

It’s so wonderful to have fans and to meet people who say nice things about your show and what it meant to them. But even the coolest interactions with fans can make you nervous and self-conscious about how you’re supposed to act. If you act bubbly and friendly like it’s the most natural thing in the world, it might come across like you’ve started to think of yourself as a celebrity. But if you look too startled or even too laid back, you could seem cold or unfriendly. Figuring out how to be gracious and humble in those situations is actually kind of difficult.

4. You find out what people really think of you.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to know what everyone really thinks about you? Would you want to know? When you live your life on camera for several years, you don’t have a choice. I don’t read articles or Google myself, but I’m still very aware of what’s going on and the general public opinion. Every second I’m on camera sparks an opinion somewhere, and thanks to magazines, blogs and social media, those opinions reach my ears. Any piece of you that ends up on camera is going to spark a roar of feedback from people, and since to them you’re just someone on TV, they don’t hold back.

5. Your life looks different from the outside.

When I first watched
16 & Pregnant
, by the end of the episode my jaw was practically on the floor. I couldn’t believe it. When we first started filming, I was innocent, pure, naive, 16-year-old, pregnant me. At the beginning of the episode, I thought, “I was such a child!” But by the end of the episode, I looked like a completely different person. I could actually see drastically how the experience changed me and pushed me into an early adulthood. My face, my expressions, my demeanor, the way I talked, and everything in general were noticeably different between the beginning and end of the episode, even though we’d only filmed for eight months. I already knew being a mom had changed me a lot, but I had no idea it was so obvious to everyone watching. Cameras let you see things you don’t normally see. Another example was seeing how many tics and mannerisms I have in common with my mom. Also, it turns out I’m a lot more Southern than I realized.

6. People stop censoring themselves with you.

In a normal life, it would be shocking for a total stranger to run up to you, give you a hug, and start asking personal questions. Once your life has been on TV for a while, you learn to expect it. But it can be unpleasant when people lose perspective and say things they wouldn’t say to anyone else. It’s not ill-intentioned. But when someone I’ve just met asks, “So, how are things with you and Ryan?” I think, I don’t know you! Even worse is when they come right out and trash Ryan. My hackles go up. I can talk about Ryan all I want, but I’m not going to hear it from a stranger. I might not like him ninety-nine percent of the time, but he’s still Bentley’s dad, and I still have his back in a way. The worst is when Bentley is right there beside me and some stranger comes up and casually calls his dad an asshole. It’s hard to deal with people constantly forgetting that you’re a real person and have a human reaction to what they say. At least they’re nicer sometimes: “Oh my God, you’re so much prettier in person!” Thanks?

7. You have to work harder for respect.

When the other Teen Moms and I started interacting with the media on talk shows and the like, it was sometimes really obvious that we were not being taken seriously. The hosts and interviewers always seemed to be talking down to us. We had almost everything going against us: We were teenagers, we were girls, we were pregnant teenage girls, and we were known for being on reality TV. There were plenty of people in media and entertainment who automatically thought of us as beneath them. It was hard to handle. Very quickly, my goal became to make it clear that there was no reason to treat me that way. I became very conscious of my tone, my language, the topics I spoke on, and how I presented myself so that interviewers would know I’m not about letting them talk to me without a certain level of respect. It’s challenging to do that while still staying real and relatable to your audience, but it’s better than being talked down to and forced to play along with someone else’s condescending view of you. You can tell when media personalities are frustrated by it. Sometimes when they can’t get what they want, they just shut down and half-ass the rest of the time allotted because you pissed them off by not letting them portray you the way they wanted.

8. You’ll never be able to show who you really are.

The reality TV format is all about capturing the moment. It’s all about what’s going to happen, what’s happening, and what just happened. Your thought process is never shown in any sort of depth. For instance, if they’re filming you and your kitchen sink breaks, they’ll show that the sink breaks, but not that you know how to fix the pipe. The next scene won’t be you fixing the sink, it will be you telling someone that the sink broke and it sucked. The camera shows you reacting to problems, but not fixing them. It’s very hard to show signs of intelligence in a reality TV format.

9. You have a special bond with your co-stars.

Whatever happens between us, the original Teen Moms and I share a unique connection. Only the four of us know what it’s like to be in this situation and deal with what we’re dealing with. The three of them are the only people in the whole world who know exactly what it’s like from my point of view. No matter what kind of friction there’s been between us, I don’t appreciate it when people say negative things about them or expect me to do the same. I know how difficult it is to be scrutinized by millions of people, and I know some of my cast members have had it a lot worse than me. Whenever I hear someone I don’t know judging one of them, I just want to say, “If I had to deal with assholes like you, I’d probably be like that, too. You’re part of the problem, not the solution.”

10. You get the fame, but not the fortune.

Reality TV can make you very famous, but you basically get the shit end of the deal: Everyone knows your name and talks about you, but there’s no red-carpet prestige or glamorous piles of money. Once you become a so-called reality TV star, people immediately think you’re a high-end celebrity and you travel the world and have a mansion and so much money and all these other things they associate with having your face on television. They think it’s impossible to be a normal human being once you get a million followers on Twitter. The fact is, my real life isn’t that much different from what it would have been without MTV. I still live in Chattanooga and go to Wal-Mart and buy bread and milk.

11. It affects your friends and family, too.

The media attention was confusing for the people around me at times. For awhile, every time there was a magazine headline like “Maci Bookout Elopes in Vegas,” my grandparents would call my parents. “We know these stories aren’t true. But please confirm anyway.” I knew I could deal with the negative parts of being in the public eye, and the judgment for being a teen mom, and all the criticism that came with being on TV. But then I became aware of the fact that my family and friends were being approached and asked the same kinds of unfiltered questions people were asking me. And of course they feel obligated to defend me when it was negative. It made me feel guilty that they were being put in certain positions that nobody wants to be in. I definitely wasn’t the only one to be put on the spot.

12. You never feel like a celebrity.

I’ll never forget going to the MTV upfronts. If you don’t know, upfronts are the big events where television networks announce their new lineups for the next season. The first time I went, I was surrounded by entertainment people and celebrities from normal reality stars like myself to actual stars and performers. Everyone from the cast of
Jersey Shore
to Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber. I like to go into any situation as confident as I can be, but I felt like a fish out of water in celebrity situations. I didn’t want to look insecure or make myself look silly, so I had to act like I belonged there and deserved to be there. But at the same time I didn’t want to come across like I actually did think I belonged there and deserved to be there. It was like trying to find the right size pants to put on. It was difficult not to freak out in a room with people who are extremely famous when I’m just on a little show called
Teen Mom
. But all I could do was try to be normal Maci, and that’s pretty much what I stuck with for good.

CHAPTER 16:

SETTLING FOR STABILITY

After five months of soul searching in Nashville, it was time to go home to Chattanooga. Originally I only meant to stay for the summer. I’d started taking college classes again, so the plan was to go back to Chattanooga in August when school started. But when summer came to a close, I just wasn’t ready yet. I felt like I had a little more to accomplish. So I signed up to take all of my classes on Mondays and Tuesdays, so I could drive home with Bentley and he could stay with Ryan’s parents for a couple of days while I stayed with my parents and went to school. But that got to be a hassle after a few weeks, and the gas costs were getting to be unreasonable. So around October, right as Bentley was turning two, I found a condo in Chattanooga and headed back home. And I brought Kyle with me.