‘Teen Mom’ Star Amber Portwood’s Daughter Leah Wants to Be Adopted by Stepmom Kristina Shirley

Teen Mom star Amber Portwood’s relationship with her daughter, Leah, has become more strained than ever before, and the teen recently confessed that she wants to be adopted by her stepmom, Kristina Shirley.

“I haven’t really talked to [Amber] or seen her in a while. It’s fine,” Leah, 16, told Cheyenne Floyd during the Thursday, February 27, episode of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter. “I don’t really care anymore. I kind of want Kristina to adopt me. I’ve been wanting it for a while just because Kristina’s been there for me since I was, like, in kindergarten and before that.”

Amber, 34, shares Leah with ex Gary Shirley. Fans first met them in 2009 when they appeared on 16 and Pregnant. Since then, they’ve continued to appear in various spinoffs of the Teen Mom franchise. In 2015, Gary, 38, and Kristina, 37, married and welcomed their daughter, Emilee, the same year.

Leah has been open about her struggles with her mom and in June 2024, some people criticized Amber’s treatment of her daughter. During Leah’s birthday celebration, which Amber arrived several hours late to, the mom of two had some harsh words for her daughter after she wasn’t pleased with how Leah responded to her new relationship with her now-ex-fiancé Gary Wayt.

“That’s her being a d–k,” Amber said to Kristina and Gary, referring to Leah.

Amber’s costar Briana Dejesus called her out in a since-deleted tweet.

“I know I’ll probably get dragged or get a phone call but after watching a certain scene … I don’t support talking down on ur kids or even calling them names. Do better!” Briana, 30, wrote at the time.

Leah’s relationship with Amber has continued to be a point of contention and the teen even said that she would like to try going to therapy to work out some of her feelings about her mom.

“I just think I have a lot of, like, issues because of Amber in the experiences I’ve had,” Leah told Gary during the February 20 episode of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter. “I want to overcome that so I can be able to forgive her and just move on, and I think that it would help to have someone to guide me on how to forgive someone because it’s hard for me to do that.”

However, during a TikTok Live shared by YouTuber Elle Bee on February 27, Amber claimed that her “daughter didn’t want to be around [her] while she’s in therapy” and that Leah didn’t have any “trauma” from the time they spent together.

“She doesn’t have trauma. I mean, she had a rough life, yeah … You can’t call that trauma. I didn’t beat her …” Amber said to the people interacting with her on the Live. “She’s not traumatized because of me. I didn’t do anything to her like that. The yelling, yeah, that happened [for] less than three years. It was a couple of years of being gone.”

Amber continued to get upset when viewers on the Live accused her of “traumatizing” her daughter, and she finally snapped, “I had a way worse life than she ever did.”