Bristol Palin reveals ‘gut-wrenching’ six-word text teen son Tripp sent her about moving to Alaska with dad Levi Johnson

Bristol Palin shared more details about her family’s recent love split after her 15-year-old son Tripp moved out of their Texas home.

The 33-year-old reality star recounted how her teenage daughter told her he had decided to move to Alaska permanently to live with his father, Levi Johnston, her ex-fiancé.

“He just texted me and was like, ‘Hey mom, I’m not coming back,'” she recalled on Monday Podcast Sex, Lies and Spray Tans. ‘Oh, I couldn’t believe it. At first I thought, “I’m coming to Alaska, we’re not doing this.” I was so angry. So angry.’

The daughter of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who lives with her and ex-husband Dakota Meyer’s daughters Sailor Grace, 8, and Atlee Bay, 7, added: “It’s still heartbreaking to me because it was always just Tripp and I, and then I had my daughters, but it’s always been Tripp and I.”

She then confessed, “It changed the dynamic of so much.”

The former Dancing with the Stars contestant said that now that her son is almost 16, he needs his father and he feels that living with him is the best option.

“All I can do is hope and pray that this is for the best,” she explained.

Bristol also said she is considering moving back to Alaska, where much of her family still lives.

“Selfishly, I just think, ‘I want him with me forever. He’s my best friend. My kids are my whole world,'” she explained. “But I can’t be selfish about it.”

In an August 14 Instagram post, Bristol revealed how deeply Tripp’s decision had affected her.

“This was 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 high school in Alaska to be closer to his dad and our entire family.”

“If you know Tripp, you know he lives for hunting and fishing. I really can’t blame him for wanting to get home.”

Bristol said she was doing her best to cope with the change.

“As difficult as it has been to come to this decision, it really isn’t about what I want,” Bristol said.

“I can’t talk about it yet without crying,” Bristol said, “but I’m selfishly praying that it’s a quick year and that the transition is smooth for us.”

Bristol came to national attention in 2008 when her mother campaigned for vice president alongside the then Republican presidential candidate, the late Senator John McCain of Arizona.

She appeared with Johnston at the Republican Party convention in September 2008, when her pregnancy with Tripp at age 17 made headlines, while her mother quickly rose to political prominence as McCain’s running mate.

In addition to the campaign, her relationship with Johnston remained in the public eye through a number of engagements, before they eventually split for good.

Bristol made headlines in 2009 when she accepted a $262,500 job as an abstinence ambassador for The Candie’s Foundation, an organization dedicated to preventing teen pregnancy.

“Abstinence is the only way to effectively prevent pregnancy 100 percent,” Bristol said in a 2009 appearance on Good Morning America. “It’s the safest choice and it prevents teenage pregnancy and a lot of heartbreak.”

Bristol revealed in March 2015 that she was engaged to Dakota Meyer, a Medal of Honor recipient as a Marine. After calling off their engagement, they married in 2016, before Meyer filed for divorce in 2018. She has had other brief romances since then, but is currently reported to be single.

Bristol documented her teenage pregnancy in her book Not Afraid of My Life, in which she called Levi a “mosquito” who “stole her virginity” while she was drunk. She later insisted on Good Morning America that she “didn’t accuse Levi of date rape or rape at all.”

“I look back on it with adult eyes and think, that was a foolish decision,” she said. “I should never have been underage drinking and I should never have put myself in that situation.”

That was the beginning of a series of lawsuits between the two, which began acrimoniously and only got worse. In an initial sworn statement, Levi asked that the hearings be made public “as a check on someone’s need to be excessively vindictive, aggressive or malicious.”

He added: ‘Not that Bristol would be like that, and neither would I. But her mother is powerful, politically ambitious and has a reputation for being extremely vindictive… So I think a public case would go a long way to reducing Sarah Palin’s instinct to attack.’

In November 2013, Levi filed court papers seeking 50/50 custody of Tripp, arguing at the time that it was in the little boy’s best interest to have his father around as much as his mother.

Bristol, who was awarded full custody by a previous judge, claimed the custody request was an attempt by the former oilfield worker to reduce his child support payments.

Her attorney claimed in court that Levi, who appeared nearly nude in Playgirl after the split, was in arrears with $66,000.

Shortly after, Bristol went to court again, claiming that Levi was an unfit parent. He did not visit his firstborn regularly and instead of paying child support, he spent all his money on expensive cars, hunting and extravagant travel.

Bristol, however, made a lot of money from her own lucrative deals. She became a spokesperson for the Candie’s Foundation — a nonprofit organization that works to prevent teen pregnancy — after Tripp was born, and was paid $262,000 in one year for her work, according to her tax returns.

She also appeared on Dancing With the Stars, wrote a 2011 memoir, and had a reality show, Life’s a Tripp, on Lifetime TV, which was canceled after one season. She also starred in Teen Mom OG in 2018.

Bristol used her newfound wealth to buy her first five-bedroom home in Arizona. In 2014, she claimed she hadn’t earned a cent in 18 months and urged a judge to increase Levi’s child support payments to $1,750 a month.

Within weeks of that filing, it was Levi’s turn to turn up the heat, asking a judge to find Bristol in contempt of court for taking Tripp from Alaska without his consent. The former couple had finally settled their custody dispute over Tripp in 2016, seven years after their son was born.

Levi also has three daughters — Breeze Beretta, Indy Rae and Delta Jo — with his wife, Sunny Johnston, née Oglesby, whom he married in 2012.

Bristol and Levi have found it easier to raise their children together in recent years.

Bristol now pursues a career in real estate and has a clothing brand called Boyhart, which she promotes on Instagram.