Teen Mom’s Catelynn and Tyler Baltierra Call Out Carly’s ‘Manipulative’ Adoptive Parents

Brandon and Teresa Davis adopted Carly when she was just a baby, as shown on MTV’s 16 and Pregnant. Though they opted for an open adoption and allowed the Baltierras to have contact with Carly over the years, those visits have since dramatically reduced, leaving Tyler and Catelynn wondering when they’ll be able to see her again.

On Thursday’s season finale of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter they were told Brandon and Teresa had a recording of Carly singing to share with them — but only if the pair listened to it on camera. On the show, Dr. Drew Pinsky is the one who presented the song to them over Zoom, but, in the end, the pair pushed back on listening to it — asking to be able to hear it without cameras around first, because it would be “very triggering” to listen to.

“I want to listen to it in private, it’s emotional,” Catelynn told Dr. Drew, despite him saying the recording was “so moving.”

“I shared with Brandon and Teresa for multiple years, even in our last visit, how I would love to have a video of her singing. Not once have they never given them to me, but now they’ll give them to me, on TV? I’ve asked for those things,” a surprised Catelynn explained.

A slate on screen then said the Davises denied their request for a link to listen to the song privately.

“The whole thing regarding the song is super confusing to me because we’ve had this whole issue from very early on about the public being involved in our adoption,” Tyler said later in the episode. “At first they could see her face, and then she turned four, they said no more face, just the back of her head. It’s gotten to a point where they don’t even like us talking about adoption at all. To go from that to now, all of a sudden, we want to share her voice publicly, share her song publicly.”

“To make you look good, you’re gonna say, ‘Here’s a song Carly wanted to give to you,’ and then in turn go, ‘but you can only listen to it on camera,'” Catelynn added of her confusion.

“The intention didn’t feel good for me. Give me the gift. The intention feels manipulative, I’m sorry,” Tyler then said. “The only thing I got from the conversation is Carly wants us to have this song. I’m so happy she’s wanting that.”

The whole situation left Tyler saying he now regrets placing Carly up for adoption in the first place.

“We didn’t know that we could get financially stable, we didn’t know that we would get resources to work on our mental health and get better before we brought more kids in the world,” he said, as Catelynn admitted to having the same thought sometimes as well.

As they both broke down in tears, Tyler looked into the camera and said, “If I had to say anything to Carly … I’m so proud of you and I’m sorry. I love you and I miss you.” Added Catelynn: “We would love to hear Carly’s song and I hope we get the chance someday, it would mean the world to listen to that.”

A few hours before the episode even aired, Catelynn and Tyler took to Instagram to publish a letter they allegedly sent Brandon and Teresa after they “refused to give us the gift that our daughter wanted us to have & told us not to talk about adoption.”

“We never chose to not listen to the song! We were actually super excited, very touched, & couldn’t wait to hear it! But this was all thrown onto us out of nowhere with MTV’s set up,” they explained, claiming it was MTV that recruited Dr. Drew since Brandon and Teresa would only speak with producers.

“The first time Cate ever heard her sing prior to this, became a very emotionally intense day. So recognizing this & wanting to prepare ourselves, all we asked was to first give us a moment to listen in private,” they continued. “That way we could collect/process ourselves a bit & then we could listen & play it on camera afterwards, like they wanted.”

“So when we asked for the gift that their daughter wanted us to have, they said the only way to hear the gift, is if we listened to it on camera & that we weren’t actually allowed to have it personally,” they wrote. “We were so confused & hurt about why they would say they have this beautiful gift to give us, only to never plan on really giving it to us in the first place (even though that’s what their daughter wanted).”

They went on to call it “truly heartbreaking to have something so special just dangled in front of us, to then have it ripped away like that.” They then reiterated that they won’t be mentioning Carly or her adoptive parents anymore.

In the letter itself, the pair reiterated their desire to hear the song privately first, as “it also brings up a lot of feelings,” and they wanted to be able to “process the inevitably intense feelings that come from it.”

They wrote that the situation also “creates confusion” for them because the Davises “get upset” when they speak about their adoption, but now wanted to share “a very personal song” on TV. “I hope you understand how that can make us feel stuck, confused, controlled and manipulated, regardless if that was your intent or not,” they continued.

The pair then apologized if anything they’ve ever said has hurt them or Carly, before promising they will “always speak about adoption we just won’t speak about our own adoption journey moving forward.”

“This reconciliation effort isn’t for you or for us… it’s for Carly and what she needs and wants. We’re the adults here and it’s our job to put everything aside for the best interest of Carly,” they concluded. “Which requires open, honest and transparent communication. So we can hope moving forward, you will participate in that requirement.”