'Teen Mom' Salary: Amber Portwood Claims They Were Paid $5,000 For '16 & Pregnant' Episode [VIDEO]
How much did the girls of 16 & Pregnant get paid for their episodes?
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According to Teen Mom star Amber Portwood, she and her season one co-stars of 16 & Pregnant, including Maci Bookout, Catelynn Lowell and Farrah Abraham, got just $5,000 for appearing on the MTV reality series.
"We only got, like, five thousand dollars but to us that was a lot at that time," Portwood told Yahoo! TV on Monday. "That paid for a lot of diapers," Bookout joked.
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Following the airing of 16 & Pregnant in 2009, four of the 12 girls were chosen to move on to Teen Mom, which would continue sharing their journeys as young parents with fans.
"At first, I did not want to sign up. I’m like, I’ve got everyone at home judging me already — why would I want the whole world judging me?" Bookout recalled. "But I remember having a conversation with my mom. She was like, ‘Let’s just talk to the producers and see what way they want the show to go. Do they want it to be like crazy, trashy drama, do they want it to be educational?” After talking with the producers extensively, I thought if I had been 16 and been able to watch myself on TV, I might not have ended up as a teen parent."
Lowell and Abraham agreed, stating they too chose to take part in the extended series because it could help others take a better path.
Teen Mom OG premieres tonight at 10 p.m. on MTV.
