‘Teen Mom 2’: Kailyn Lowry’s Ex Jo Rivera Says He ‘Didn’t Fight Hard Enough’ for Custody of Isaac

Teen Mom 2 star Kailyn Lowry and her ex Jo Rivera had their son Isaac in 2010 when Lowry was 17 and Rivera was 18. On a recent episode of the reality star’s podcast, Baby Mamas No Drama, Rivera spoke about what he would have done differently when it came to custody of Isaac if he could go back.

Jo Rivera reflects on his custody battle with Kailyn Lowry over their son, Isaac

“I didn’t fight hard enough,” Rivera said on the Nov. 24 episode of Baby Mamas No Drama. “Like, I settled many times outside of court. … I never actually let a judge or anyone hear what I had to say.”

Looking back, Rivera says there was “no reason” that he and Lowry shouldn’t have had 50/50 custody.

“I don’t feel like there was ever any reason for him not to be with me,” he said. “I was young, I was naive, I didn’t know my rights, what I deserved to have, what my son deserve[d] to have. I was just trying to get what I could.”

Rivera says he was lucky to have the resources he did at the time. If he didn’t, he says Lowry “would have just outspent me. I mean, that’s a thing. People need to understand that.”

“It was tough for me, a young kid with a kid trying to just have what I thought was a natural-born right which is to be with my son,” Rivera told Lowry on Tuesday. “Something so simple that you would think is so simple but I just didn’t, there was no recourse other than me hiring a lawyer and fighting as hard as I could. And I couldn’t imagine someone who didn’t have the resources that I had because I was blessed enough to be financially stable at that time when I really had to start getting into these fights.”

He continued: “If you don’t have the representation or the knowledge, someone can just really just fight harder than you because they have more money and it’s true.”

Today, Kailyn Lowry and Jo Rivera are on good terms

While things might have been messy between the exes for a while, today, Lowry, Rivera, and his wife Vee are all on excellent terms. Vee is even Lowry’s co-host on Baby Mamas No Drama. And this isn’t the first time Jo’s appeared on the podcast.

In a Sept. episode of Teen Mom 2, Lowry spoke about co-parenting with Rivera, expressing that they “both ultimately have the same goal for Isaac.”

“We both want him to be a happy, successful, stable adult,” she said.