Wait, Why Isn't Jenelle Evans on 'Teen Mom' Anymore?
With Farrah Abraham missing from this season of Teen Mom OG, we can't help but wonder what another one of the show's most controversial cast members, Jenelle Evans, is up to. Even when she's not on the screen, the mom of three causes plenty of drama and can send the internet into a rage cycle in less than 280 characters. So, why isn't MTV still jumping at the chance to broadcast this woman's life for entertainment? It's kind of a long story.
Let's start off with her 16 and Pregnant days.
Jenelle first starred in the season 2 premiere of 16 and Pregnant in an episode so rough, it still haunts me nine years later. It kicks off with Jenelle saying that she fights a lot with her mom, Barbara. TBH, this is the understatement of the century. By the end of the episode, Jenelle has broken up with her 22-year-old baby daddy, Andrew Lewis. (He got arrested. Charming!) Barbara ends up caring for Jenelle's new bb boy, Jace.
Also, side-note: I know that most of our looks change after nine years, but teenage Jenelle looks like a literal different person.
Everything got WAY crazier on Teen Mom 2.
When Jenelle joined the Teen Mom 2 cast in 2011, her episode of 16 and Pregnant started to look tame. The show chronicled everything from her heroin use to her legal issues, to her complicated relationships. If anything, the season-a-year schedule couldn't keep up with the woman!
So much went down in Jenelle's eight seasons of Teen Mom 2, that she actually just went ahead and wrote her own memoir, Read Between the Lines. A few key moments if you weren't keeping up: she had two more kids, Kaiser, 4, (with ex-fiancé Nathan Griffith) and Ensley, 2, (with David Eason, who she married in September 2017).
But then, the drama went too far.
MTV seemed to be fine with sharing Jenelle's life, whether the content was outrageous or intimate. (The fifth season premiere included footage of Jenelle getting an abortion after her arrest for assault and felony heroin possession.) But the network finally drew the line when Jenelle's husband allegedly shot and killed the family's pet, Nugget.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Jenelle Eason (@j_evans1219) on May 1, 2019 at 5:36am PDT
RIP, Nugget. Gorgeous French Bulldog, Eason family pet. Gone too soon, but never forgotten. I never met you, but I’d like to imagine you loved cuddles and parking at mailmen.
Anyway, David admitted to killing Nugget on his now-deleted Instagram, after claiming that the dog snapped at daughter Ensley. David had already been fired from MTV after a series of allegedly homophobic tweets in 2018, but after Nugget’s death, MTV also parted ways with Jenelle.
Moreover, Jenelle has temporarily lost custody of her kids after the incident. Jace and Ensley are staying with Babs, while Kaiser is with his father and paternal grandmother.
Besides the scandal, Jenelle wouldn't have been on this season of Teen Mom OG, anyway.
It's tricky to keep all of the different Teen Mom casts and seasons separate, but even if David hadn't shot Nugget, Jenelle wouldn't be on this season of Teen Mom OG. You see, because she was on Teen Mom 2, she's not technically an "OG." (Which stands for Original Girl, btw.)
After all this madness, the OG cast have been very keen to remind us all that the Teen Mom 2 cast are a VERY separate bunch. According to Us Weekly, the OGs are “on a different level” to all the Jenelle drama.
Could Jenelle ever come back to Teen Mom?
I mean, stranger things have happened. MTV’s statement surrounding Jenelle’s axing said that they didn’t have any plans to film her next season - not that it had “ended its relationship” à la David Eason. In fact, as most of the drama is down to David, if the couple split then it could mean that Jenelle will reappear on our screens.
Jenelle seems to have no hard feelings, and even said "I hold a special place in my heart for MTV and the producers! I shared 10 years of my life with them! I wish them nothing but success." According to Us Weekly, Jenelle was considering divorce after Nugget’s death, but the two still appear to be very much together.
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