A balancing act! Cory Wharton has a lot on his plate — from parenting duties to self-care to his reality TV career.
The Challenge alum, 30, shares daughter Ryder, 4, with ex Cheyenne Floyd and daughter Mila, 20 months, with girlfriend Taylor Selfridge. Wharton is a reality TV veteran, but his dedication to the job has created issues in his coparenting relationship with Floyd, 29, in the past.
“It’s not always rainbows and butterflies,” he exclusively revealed during a July episode of Us Weekly’s “Watch With Us” podcast, confessing that he and Floyd butted heads over his decision to return to The Challenge for season 37 while she was pregnant with her second child. “We do have our fights and we do get into it.”
Wharton insisted that the pair “always make sure that [their] focus is back on Ryder” when they disagree.
“I think this upcoming season [of Teen Mom OG], we start to see that it’s starting to affect Ryder a little bit, [the time of] me being away,” he explained. “That’s what I have to kind of take a step back and realize, ‘OK, I’m not going to be able to get this time back in my child’s life.’ It’s a hard decision. It’s like, do you take this work opportunity and this great chance that you have or do you be there for your family? It’s a tough decision for sure.”
Wharton added: “I have a lot of people at home that depend on me. So when I go to The Challenge, I’m clocking into work. I’m away from my family. … It’s hard on a lot of people.”
The Teen Mom OG star also revealed that he missed a major milestone in Mila’s life during filming. “It was hard mentally, just because the people at home were kind of struggling. Cheyenne was pregnant, Ryder was acting up. Taylor was missing me, and I missed Mila’s first steps,” he said. “So, I’m missing crucial points in my child’s life that, like, I’ll never be able to get back. So that’s kind of hard to swallow.”
Floyd, who welcomed son Ace with fiancé Zach Davis in May, told Us in September that she and Wharton are on “great” terms again after a turbulent period of coparenting.
“I like when my kid is happy,” she elaborated at the time. “So as long as he’s in town, she’s happy. It’s when he does The Challenge where it gets a little rocky.”
Wharton announced via Instagram in November that he was taking a break from The Challenge to spend more time with his family.
Want to see Wharton’s day in action? Keep scrolling through the photos below to discover how he spends his time.