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Teen Mom 3 aired its premiere episode on MTV this week, and its cast are officially on their way to being household names. Destined to be a crowd favorite is Katie Yeager, the driven high school senior who was forced to give up her dreams of heading to college with her best friend when she became pregnant with daughter Molli.
MTV clearly picked the Teen Mom 3 carefully in an attempt to avoid scandals of the type Amber Portwood and Jenelle Evans have brought to the network. Katie explained her reason for being on the show in an exclusive interview with The Stir, and spilled on whether she has regrets about what fans will see on Teen Mom:
On why she decided to join the cast:
When I'd gotten the call, I'd read an article about the 16 & Pregnant effect, about how it's actually helping and how it's actually making a difference.
Then I spoke with my mother about it, just really had a heart to heart and sit-down. You only have so many chances in the world to truly make a difference and actually kind of selflessly help someone, and that's why I wanted to do it. So why not take the chance of doing that? Doing something that's completely not for you, for people who are strangers?
Whatever they take away from my story, Briana's story, Alex's story, hopefully it helps.
On how she handles the critics:
If you don't know me personally, I'm not going to take anything you say personally. People are going to take whatever opinion they have and go with it, and that's your opinion and not everybody's going to like you, but my focus is on what I need to be doing that's best for my daughter. Everything else is just life.
On comparisons to other cast members:
I don't think any of us can really be categorized as any of those girls. They lived different lives from us and they're different people. I feel like we bring different spice to the mix. We're kind of fresh faces.
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We're all different girls; we're all from completely different parts of the country. We are as different as we can be from one another, all kind of in the same situation, and it's kind of cool to see how 12 different girls from 12 different parts of the world handle the same situation.
On her relationship with Maci Bookout:
Seeing somebody that's going through the same thing that we're just starting out -- she's been doing it for four years -- it's kind of like you cherish her advice.
I definitely appreciate any of the advice that any of the girls have to share with us because they know more than us what it's like dealing with this. A lot of the girls handle it with grace. Maci takes a lot of criticism, she takes a lot of stuff, and she's a strong person.
One of the things I took away was when she said, "I'm reading these comments and thinking why would anyone take the time to write this about me?" Then she was like ... but I'm wasting my time reading it and responding it? Why would I take my time to respond to that?
That's one thing that I definitely took with me and kept in the back of my mind. Do what Maci does; just don't respond, don't waste your time because you have other things that you need to be worried about.
We really respect her.
I respect all the girls and I feel that everybody has a different thing to take out of everybody's story, see how everybody handles things.
On regrets from the show:
Looking back, I understand my reasoning for doing everything that I did. There's some things I wish I kind of would have handled differently, but it's made me who I am today and I wouldn't change that for the world. I feel like I'm in a good place right now.
On moving out of Wyoming (where Teen Mom 3 was shot), away from her family to Salt Lake City:
I have a hard time taking help from people. That's my biggest downfall, I think. I have a hard time accepting help.
I learned my strong will from somebody, and it's definitely from my mom. Living away from her, I miss her, and I miss having her around, and Molli misses having her around, but I talk to her, I feel like more about things. I'm way more open with her about things now that I'm on my own, I'm independent, and I'm comfortable.
It meant so much to me to hear that my mom is proud of me because that's the only woman and the only person I want to impress. My daughter and my mom.
Did you catch Katie on Teen Mom 3's premiere? What do you think of this feisty teen?
Image by Jeanne Sager
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