Thanks, I Hate It
'Teen Mom 2' fans are angry after learning Ashley Jones and Bar Smith learned they were fired via social media. The duo reacts.
Published on February 6, 2024
2 min readAshley Jones and Bar Smith’s story with MTV appears to be over. The couple, who first appeared on Teen Mom: Young and Pregnant, joined the cast of Teen Mom 2 in 2021 after Chelsea Houska left the franchise. Now, they’ve reportedly been ousted. The firing has fans of the franchise absolutely livid. Jones and Smith are explaining exactly what happened, revealing they had been fired via social media.
Ashley Jones and Bar Smith speak out after ‘Teen Mom 2’ firing
While Jones and Smith seem mostly OK with their MTV careers ending, both are bothered by how it happened. According to several sources, Jones and Smith learned Mackenzie McKee had replaced them on Teen Mom 2: The Next Chapter with the rest of the world. The couple read about their firing on TeenMomFanz, an Instagram account dedicated to news and gossip about the franchise’s cast.
Following the news, both Smith and Jones took to the post’s comment section to react to their dismissal. Bar wrote, “Crazy way to find out you was fired, welp it was a good run with yall.”
He went on to thank the fans for all their support. Jones simply asked fans not to blame McKee. News that both Smith and Jones were not informed that they were replaced shocked fans. Now, viewers have launched a social media campaign demanding the rehiring of Jones and Smith.
MTV ghosted Ashley Jones and Bar Smith’s replacement once before
Jones and Smith are not the first stars MTV production teams have ghosted. In fact, “quiet firing” appears to be a bit of a recent trend in reality TV. Valerie Bertinelli claims the Food Network ghosted her instead of discussing her firing from Kids Baking Championship, and several former Teen Mom stars have asserted that the production team left them to figure out they were fired. It seems like MTV was the network that paved the way for the trend.
Jones’ replacement, Mackenzie McKee, has plenty of experience with being ghosted by the network. McKee appeared on 16 and Pregnant and the now-defunct Teen Mom 3 before eventually joining the cast of Teen Mom OG in 2020. Her tenure with that show was short-lived.
McKee appeared in just 12 episodes of the series before she was booted. Her firing did not include a conversation, either. McKee insists that the production team just stopped scheduling her and would not respond to her calls. She said she eventually figured out that she had been let go on her own.
McKee became a fitness influencer but has since returned to the Teen Mom universe. Not everyone is thrilled that she’ll be taking Jones’ place, but Jones and Smith have asked followers not to take out their frustration on McKee. According to The Ashley Reality Roundup Group, the duo took to the comments section to go to bat for McKee. They both insist that she is not to blame for MTV’s poor treatment of them.
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