Bristol Palin Explains Why Son Tripp Wanted to Live With Father Levi Johnston

Bristol Palin is hurting at the moment after her son Tripp Johnston requested to move back with his father full-time in Alaska. According to E! News, the 15-year-old used an abrupt way of informing his mother he was staying in Alaska.

“He just texted me and was like, ‘Hey Mom, I’m not coming back,'” Palin, 33, said during an appearance on Cheryl Burke’s Sex, Lies and Spray Tans podcast. “At first I’m like, ‘I’m coming up to Alaska. We’re not doing this.’ I was so mad, so mad.”

The Teen Mom OG alum currently lives in Texas with her and ex-husband Dakota Meyer’s daughters Sailor Grace, 8, and Atlee Bay, 7. While she eventually came around to how her son felt, Palin confirmed the request was still “gut-wrenching” for her.

“Because it’s been just Tripp and I, and then I had my girls, but it’s always been Tripp and I. It’s changed the dynamic of so much,” she explains. “It’s one of those things where he’s almost 16, he does need his dad and he needs that relationship. And he thinks this is best right now, and all I can do is just hope and pray that it is what’s best.”

“Selfishly, I’m just like, ‘I want him with me forever. He’s my best friend,'” she added. “My kids are my whole world. But I can’t be selfish in that.” Palin first announced the decision earlier in August with a post on social media.

“This has been the hardest ‘first day of school’ yet with one of the biggest pieces of my heart missing,” she wrote at the time. “Tripp has decided to finish out high school in Alaska to be closer to his dad and our entire family.”