'Teen Mom' Maci Bookout Calls Amber Portwood's Domestic Battery Arrest a 'Shock' (Exclusive)

Maci Bookout is opening up about friend and Teen Mom OG co-star Amber Portwood's domestic battery arrest, calling the whole situation "definitely tough" in a new interview with PopCulture.com.

Ahead of Tuesday's all-new episode of the MTV reality show, Bookout said she wished she could have been geographically closer to Portwood after she was arrested for allegedly attacking boyfriend Andrew Glennon while he was holding their 1-year-old son James back in July (Portwood would eventually plead guilty to lesser charges). "The whole situation was definitely tough," she told PopCulture.

"It was a shock for everybody," she continued. "But those are the times when us girls wish we lived closer to each other so we could get in the car and head over to each other's house."

Bookout tried to process the news of Portwood's arrest in last week's episode ot Teen Mom OG, telling husband Taylor McKinney, "She hasn't been able to see James. It sucks for everybody. ...As her friend, you feel helpless. We don't know all the details or facts of what happened or what had happened before. It's a freaking mess. It's a lot of tough stuff for these kids to comprehend and deal with."

Since Tuesday's episode, Bookout has faced criticism for supporting Portwood following her arrest, but the seasoned reality star told PopCulture she has an easy way to deal with the day-to-day criticism online.

"I never read any of it," she revealed. "I kind of made a pact with myself way back when right after 16 and Pregnant aired, and that was before social media was anything close to what it is today. Don't Google yourself and don't read the comments."

Speaking out about her polycystic ovary syndrome diagnosis has given her a way to interact with her followers on a more positive and meaningful platform, she added, noting that the response she got after finally revealing what she had been going through during filming was astounding.

"The support that I got and the people who reached out to me…" she recalled, adding that it was this support that pushed her to be an advocate for women with PCOS publicly. "Once I realized this was a much bigger thing for a lot of women than I could even comprehend, that's when I really dove deep into figuring out what I could do to get things moving for research and funding."

Teen Mom OG airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.

Photo credit: MTV