The franchise may be called Teen Mom — but nearly all of the original Teen Mom 2 cast members are now parents of teenagers themselves.
When the show premiered in 2011 — following the lives of four girls from 16 and Pregnant season 2 — no one, least of all the cast, could predict that their children would be growing up on television for more than a decade.
The original iteration of the show took MTV viewers behind the scenes of becoming a teenage parent. Though each cast member — Kailyn Lowry, Chelsea Houska, Leah Messer and Jenelle Evans — all lived in separate areas of the country and had different experiences with their children’s fathers, the foursome’s struggle was the same when it came to the difficulties of being a parent at such a young age.
In 2017, the cast grew with the addition of Briana DeJesus, who appeared on 16 and Pregnant season 3 — and, later, in the failed Teen Mom spinoff Teen Mom 3. The Florida native not only brought her own drama to the small screen, but also created a scandal within the cast when she began dating Javi Marroquin, Lowry’s ex-husband. (The two called it quits in January 2018, several months after making their relationship Instagram official.)
Jade Cline, for her part, rounded out the cast two years later, taking her story from Teen Mom: Young and Pregnant to Teen Mom 2.
Throughout the show’s 11-season run, the four original girls — Lowry, Houska, Messer and Evans — went on to expand their families. Both the “Coffee Convos” podcast host and the South Dakota native have four children each, while the Hope, Grace & Faith author and the North Carolina resident each have three.
DeJesus, for her part, is the mom of two daughters, while Cline parents one.
Of all seven cast members to appear on the franchise, only three have decided to continue on to the newest spinoff in the Teen Mom universe: Messer, DeJesus and Cline all appear on Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, which premiered in September 2022. (Evans, who was fired in 2019 after husband David Eason killed their dog, made a short appearance in the premiere episode of the new show.)
Houska left the series in 2020, while Lowry followed suit in 2022 after the end of season 11.
Keep scrolling to see all of the Teen Mom 2 kids then — and now: