Teen Mom OG star Maci Bookout is facing some backlash after the show revealed that her 11-year-old son, Bentley, who she shares with her ex Ryan Edwards, joined a private wrestling team. The backlash stemmed from the diet the mom had put her son on so that he could “make weight” for an upcoming match.
During the episode, as People reports, Bookout revealed that she signed her son up for the contact sport because she believed it would be a good outlet for him to channel his stress and frustrations from Edwards battles with substance abuse.
As the episode continued, Bookout is heard telling her 11-year-old that if he wanted to achieve his goals of making it to the state tournament then he was going to have to “stick to a diet to make his weight class.” Those who have grown up around wrestlers understand that’s a common thing to say no matter how young the athlete is.
Maci Bookout Defends Herself After Comments About Son Cutting Weight
And that rubbed people the wrong way. “He weighs like, 74.5, 75 lbs.,” she said at one point during the show. “So now he just is on a very strict, good, healthy calorie diet. Lots of water, and workouts to actually cut weight.” Bentley also revealed that at the time that he was consuming about 1,000 calories.
But after fans started to slam Bookout for putting her son on a diet, she took to Twitter to clarify her actions. And also shared where Bentley is now in his wrestling journey.
“In reference to tonight’s episode-I have never and will never convince Bentley to ‘cut’ weight. After wrestling his first 2 tournaments in the 75lb class weighing in at 72-he came to me & said he wanted to wrestle at 70. I told him that’s fine, but you WILL NOT ‘cut’ weight. I will layout a healthy scheduled diet for u, u can eat salads, grilled chicken, veggies, good carbs-instead of pizza, Doritos & candy bars. Through the season, he decided he didn’t like it-I told him that’s okay! U can go back to usual and wrestle at 75 which is what he did.”
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The mom went on to clarify that her brother was a collegiate wrestler and that she was familiar with the healthy ways to cut weight, as well as the toll the sport can take on a person. But that is a fact for most sports.