Yahoo News Shanna Moakler Slams Rumors That She’s a ‘Deadbeat Mom,’ Reveals She’s 'Never’ Met Kourtney Kardashian (Exclusive)
"I've always been present in my children's [lives]," Moakler tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview
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Shanna MoaklerShanna Moakler is setting the record straight on her parenting.
The actress and model, 49, tells PEOPLE exclusively that upon recently going on social media to have followers "ask me some questions," she noticed how "a lot of the questions are always about my kids, particularly highlighting how "all of a sudden I became [a] deadbeat mom or I wasn't in my children's lives" in some fans' minds.
"People are like, 'Why do your kids live with Travis?' So I would gladly set the record straight," Moakler says. "I have never not been involved in my children's lives. I've always had shared custody."
Specifically, Moakler also addresses long-running claims that "all she did was sleep on Meet the Barkers," and how that may have influenced public perception of her. She notes that she slept because "I was up all night rocking three babies under the age of five" and that those brief moments of rest on television should "not dictate or narrate who I am as a mother."
Furthermore, she emphasizes that her "children are now 18, 20, and 25 at this point. So my children are grown. I'm basically an empty nester at this point. They are living their lives."
Moakler and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker began dating in 2002 and were married for four years before divorcing in 2008, but their complicated relationship continued in the years following.
In 2022, Barker married Kourtney Kardashian, and from 2020 to 2021, Moakler was seeing Matthew Rondeau. By November 2023, Barker and Kardashian welcomed their first child together.
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According to Moakler, she has "never even met" the reality star, nor Rocky, the couple's son. However, Moakler says that her kids with Barker "love the baby. They said that he's beautiful, and yeah, they're all happy. They're good. So that's all I care about."
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Shanna Moakler"I think people think I was angry," she says of her feelings towards the Kardashians and Barker's involvement with them. "But I'm not angry. It wasn't anger. I think I get maybe frustrated, but I'm also from the East Coast and I swear a lot and I can be very direct sometimes. And I think some people take that as anger where I'm just very real where I'm like, 'F--- the family.' I don't have to f----- like the family. And it's like, there's people that don't like it."
Moakler says her son Landon and daughter Alabama have only ever been apart from her for a considerable amount of time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"During COVID, they stayed with him because he has a massive home and it's nicer," she says. "He has a mega-mansion. He has a movie theater, he has golf carts. He has all those things."
Despite this, Moakler maintains that she has "never not been there" for her kids. "I didn't have them as much because of COVID, when we were all in lockdown," she says. "So that was the only time that I wasn't as present, but I've always been present in my children's life. I never understand it because there's a whole social media history of me with my children, active in my children's lives."
Moakler — who's a spokesperson for Tahoe Blue vodka — calls the accusations against her "hurtful as a mother," adding, "It was devastating, but it was also untrue."
"I think the most disgusting thing you can do to a woman is to demean her as a mother," she doubles down, stating, "No one can tell me how to speak about it because I'm the one that's getting bullied ... about not being a [good] mother."
"I'm there for my children every day," Moakler insists.
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