Bristol Palin Opens Up About Son Tripp Telling Her He Doesn’t Want to Live With Her: ‘I Was So Mad’

Bristol Palin recently got candid about the heartbreak she experienced when her son, Tripp, told her that he wanted to live with his dad instead of her.

“It still is gut-wrenching to me,” the Teen Mom OG alum, 33, said on the Monday, August 26, episode of Cheryl Burke‘s “Sex, Lies, and Spray Tans” podcast. “It’s been just Tripp and I, and then I had my girls, but it’s always been Tripp and I.”

Bristol shares her son, 15, with ex Levi Johnston. She later welcomed daughters Sailor, 8, and Atlee, 7, with ex-husband Dakota Meyer.

Though Tripp living with his dad in Alaska has “changed the dynamic” of the family, the public speaker admitted that the teen “does need his dad.”

“[Tripp] needs that relationship,” she added. “He thinks that this is best right now, and all I can do is just hope and pray that it is what’s best. … As hard as it is for me, and it’s so hard for my girls too, I know that he needs to grow that relationship with his dad.”

Bristol revealed that Tripp had texted her about wanting to stay with Levi, 34, in Alaska.

“He just texted me and was like, ‘Hey, Mom, I’m not coming back,’” she recalled. “I couldn’t even believe it. At first, I’m like, ‘I’m coming up to Alaska, we’re not doing this.’ I was so mad.”

However, Bristol realized that it was a “monumental decision” for Tripp to make. “I respect that he thinks this is what’s best and he needs that relationship with his dad,” she continued, noting that she has kept in touch with her son while they are apart. “Selfishly, I’m like, ‘I just want him with me forever.’ He’s my best friend. My kids are my whole world. But I can’t be selfish in that.”

She later added that she would be visiting Alaska, where mom Sarah Palin and other family members still live, “plenty to watch him play football and whatnot.”

Bristol first revealed that Tripp wasn’t living with her in Texas on August 14 when she shared an Instagram Story about her daughters preparing to head back to school.

“This has been the hardest ‘first day of school’ yet with one of the biggest pieces of my heart missing,” she wrote. “Tripp has decided to finish out high school in Alaska to be closer to his dad and our entire family.”

The Dancing With the Stars alum continued, “As hard as it has been to come to grips with his decision — it’s truly not about what I want. He’s almost 16 years old, and that relationship with his dad is a lot more important than my own selfish desires of having him with his mama forever!”

Bristol and Levi began their relationship in high school. The reality TV personality gave birth to Tripp in December 2008, two months after her 18th birthday. She and her then-boyfriend continued to date on and off until 2010, and their split resulted in a battle for custody of their son. Levi won joint custody in 2016.