In the latest video from her Patreon series The Cost of Custody, mom-of-seven Kail Lowry continued to dole out lessons that she’s learned throughout her custody journey, including how to prevent having your own words or actions used against you in the courtroom.
As Teen Mom fans know, Kail shares 16-year-old son Elliott with ex Jo Rivera, 12-year-old son Lincoln with ex-husband Javi Marroquin, sons Lux and Creed with Chris Lopez, and son Rio and twins Verse and Valley with former fiancé Elijah Scott.
Just weeks after lamenting over the fact that she “spent all of [her] twenties in court,” the former Teen Mom 2 star dropped Part 3 of her multi-part Patreon series, which she kicked off by reiterating how much time and money she has spent on custody, as well as how her “financial conversations and everyday life tasks revolve around the custody and court systems.”
The former MTV star– who recently told fans that she has spent more than $1 million duking it out with her children’s fathers in court over the years– noted in her latest video that each visit to court ends up costing her around $20,000 and how that money could be used for other things, including her children’s education or trust funds.
“I would hate for anyone else to have to go through this and if you can do anything– exhaust all resources before you have to go to court,” Kail advised. “That’s really what I’m trying to get across.”
Kail went on to apologize to listeners for possibly coming off as “abrasive or aggressive” in any of her Cost of Custody videos, while explaining that it has “just been a lot over the last 10 years.” In addition to encouraging her listeners (yet again) to “exhaust all resources” before resorting to custody court, Kail discussed how certain things a person says or does can come back to bite them in the courtroom.
“So, every single thing that I do, I think about how this will be used as evidence,” Kail stated. “When I went Live and then I apologized on socials, how will that be used as evidence? My podcast has been submitted as evidence because I talked about a certain situation.”
Kail claimed that this is the reason she has been “removing anything” she’s posted or said about her children’s fathers “for a long time,” claiming it’s not worth the risk of potentially having the content used against her in court. She also said that, because she’s lived her entire adult life in the public eye, she has to be even more mindful of the way she responds and reacts to certain things– and people.
“ … even if a co-parent gets on social media and says X, Y and Z– true or not– I have to really think about how I react or respond, because I have to really think about how it will be used against me in court,” Kail said. “ … I could be out of town for work for three days. Well, how will those three days that I was supposed to be with my kids be used against me in court? Which it has.”
While Kail said that the possibility of her words or actions being used against her in court has changed the way she reacts in certain situations, she admits there have been “so many times over the past few years” that she has “desperately wanted to respond” to things that were said about her publicly. Kail went on to use separate incidents involving exes Javi and Chris as examples of her choosing to take the high road in the co-parenting department.
“ … I’ll use Javi as an example, he went on Live in June, I have not responded to anything that he said because even though we are in December now, he could still use anything that I say against me if he were to go file something,” she explained. “Same thing for Chris. So, I do feel like, unfortunately, my progress there has not been completely linear, but I am desperately making really big changes to the way that I react and respond to things so that it doesn’t hurt me in the long run, but also doesn’t hurt my kids in the long run.”
Despite the (alleged) “big changes” she’s made regarding the way she responds to or speaks about her children’s fathers, Kail claimed that some of the remarks her baby daddies have made about her have affected her business, as well as her mental health.
“I have an identity crisis,” Kail shared. “I have been having an identity crisis for two years and a lot of it stems from, I am the girl with four baby dads and I am always in and out of custody.
“ … one of the dads is always saying something about my parenting and then I just remain quiet because I don’t know how it’s going to affect [me] in the long run,” she added.
Later in the episode, Kail revealed other details about her specific custody journey, including the fact that she has been to court in two of Delaware’s three counties, and that she has had four attorneys for child custody– two women and two men. The multi-podcast host shared these details while stressing to listeners the importance of getting “as many consultations as you can” when finding the right attorney.
“I am of the opinion, based on the four that I have worked with, that the men were not aggressive enough,” Kail said. “They did not do as much as I thought they would … .”
Kail ended the episode by addressing those who continue to accuse her of “weaponizing” the court system against her four baby daddies, before reminding listeners that the judge overseeing these custody cases is the one who makes the final decision, not her.
“Let me be clear when I say this, I am not the one filing. [The dads] are,” Kail insisted. “They are the ones filing in court and I am the respondent. I have no feelings towards these dads. I feel indifferent. I don’t love them, I don’t hate them. I don’t care about them. I care about them being the 50 percent of my child’s parent.
“They are 50 percent, I am 50 percent,” she continued. “Do your 50 percent and we don’t need to communicate other than what’s going on with the children. I am not the one filing. I am not the one making the final decision.”
(Photos: MTV; Instagram)
One Response
Seems like all the dads are “doing their 50%” except for Chris, which should have been obvious from day 1. I feel like she should question why her baby daddies keep bringing her to court, despite having far fewer resources than her… this isn’t normal
And Kail, how will you reconcile the fact that your whole career is based off exploiting/talking about your children and baby daddies? It’s painful enough to go through a family separation as a child without parents constantly bashing each other. I can’t imagine my mom having made a career of bashing my dad.