Born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, she received public attention after being cast in the reality television series 16 and Pregnant in 2009, which documented the pregnancies and first months of motherhood for several young women.
Later that year she was cast in the spin-off series Teen Mom, and appeared in each of its four seasons until its conclusion in 2012.
In March 2015, Bookout, along with Catelynn Baltierra, Amber Portwood, and Farrah Abraham, returned to MTV for the fifth season of the show, renamed Teen Mom OG.
Bookout became pregnant with her first child with then-boyfriend Ryan Edwards, and gave birth to their son Bentley Cadence on October 27, 2008.
The pair announced Bookout was pregnant with their first child together in January 2015,[6] and they welcomed a daughter Jayde Carter on May 29, 2015.