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Catelynn Lowell and Tyler Baltierra have chosen the nuclear option.
Late last summer, Carly’s parents cut off contact with the Teen Mom stars.
Since then, Catelynn and Tyler have stopped holding back on their already low-filtered social media outbursts.
Now, they’re accusing Brandon and Teresa of exploiting Carly — for money. If true, that sounds very hypocritical.
Catelynn Lowell and Tyler Baltierra are going scorched earth on Brandon and Teresa
On the Wednesday, April 2 episode of their Cate & Ty Break It Down! podcast, Catelynn Lowell and Tyler Baltierra accused Brandon and Teresa Davis of using their legal custody of Carly for fame and for money.
“I know a lot of people say we are exploiting Carly or posting stuff when we were asked not to,” Catelynn acknowledged. “Part of this podcast is to also get my part out of that’s not all factual.”
One issue for the couple is that they say that their biological daughter’s adoptive parents are exploiting Carly — the same thing that critics accuse them of doing.
“When it’s beneficial for them to exploit Carly and post…” Catelynn began. In other words, she believes that Brandon and Teresa are hypocrites.
“They’ve kind of exploited their situation too,” she later accused. “People want to put all the blame on us like, ‘You’re on a reality TV show and they didn’t sign up for that’ but they did.”
When Brandon and Teresa appeared on 16 and Pregnant, it was a one-off. The two understood it to be a documentary — and did not yet realize that it was reality TV. (Which was fairly new at that time)
Are Brandon and Teresa as camera-shy as people believe?
Since then, however, they have appeared in the Teen Mom franchise more than once — and as recently as 2023. And this was allegedly to their benefit.
“‘If you don’t compensate us, then you’re not allowed to use these pictures on TV,’” Catelynn alleged that Brandon and Teresa had told MTV.
“It’s hypocritical. I don’t understand,” Tyler marveled. “If it’s really a moral standpoint that you’re taking, OK.”
“But it’s not,” Tyler pointed out. “Because you literally went on the magazine when she was five and put her face out there, and that was fine and that was OK.”
He is referring to the Bethany Christian Services adoption agency magazine. The Davis family appeared on the cover — back in 2012.
In addition to the alleged hypocrisy, Tyler and Catelynn called out a 2023 incident in which they had shown a photo — featuring only the back of Carly’s head. At the time, they’d thought that this would be within the Davis family’s boundaries.
Is it just about money?
“They called us [after we posted the photos from the 2023 visit],” Catelynn recalled. However, Brandon apparently told her that “now MTV can’t pay us.”
Tyler explained: “Because now it’s not an exclusive picture, we [posted] it first.”
“A lot of people don’t know that there’s so much backstory to our story!” Catelynn added. Clearly, they felt that they’d been sitting on this sense of frustration for too long.
According to Catelynn and Tyler, they often felt that Brandon and Teresa were holding their power over their heads.
Whether it was discouraging them from speaking ill of adoption or scolding them for costing them a payday.
“My thing is that we’ve stayed silent on all those little details up until now, because now we have nothing to lose,” Tyler summarized.
Perhaps going scorched earth on your biological daughter’s adoptive parents is not the best course of action.
But then, as Tyler says, they feel that the ending of all contact means that things are as bad as they can get.