Bristol lets Tripp have a taste of icing before he gets dessert. (Richard Knapp)
Bristol takes time for some target practice in Alaska. (
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After “Dancing With the Stars,” one would have thought that Bristol Palin had fallen off our radar. Not so. Whether you like it or not, she’s back. And this time, America’s most famous teen mom has brought her son with her — a towheaded, blue-eyed 3-year-old named Tripp who is impossible to resist.
In the new Lifetime docu-reality series, “Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp,” you’ll get a very real look at what her life was like over the past year.
She has certainly been busy. Over the course of the 14 half-hour episodes, Bristol moves to Los Angeles, and then returns home to her native Wasilla, Alaska, where she lives on her parents’ compound. Bristol is seen enjoying outdoors-y things like firing a gun at target practice, getting a new boyfriend, Gino, reacting to the release of baby daddy Levi Johnston’s tell-all book, fighting with her younger sister/best friend, Willow, and, most importantly, taking care of Tripp — sans nanny.
It’s a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of someone viewers might be ready to write off. “People know so much about the Palins, but they’ve never really seen [their] real family dynamic,” says series co-executive producer and showrunner, Matt Lutz, adding that “this is an unvarnished look” at the family.
The Bio channel was originally set to air the show — about Bristol and her fellow “Dancing with the Stars” contestant, actor Kyle Massey — but dropped the series last fall for unspecified reasons.
Lifetime swooped in and snapped up the series, re-tooling it by deep-sixing Massey and making Bristol, now 21, the focus. The network was so happy with the first 10 episodes shot, the series order was bumped up to 14 episodes.
Given how both Bristol, who has already published a memoir, “Not Afraid of Life,” and her mother, former Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, inspire wrath among certain Americans, it’s a bit of a surprise that the women’s network would want to devote an entire show to such a polarizing figure.
But, a series about Bristol actually makes perfect sense, says Lutz.
“She’s actually a really compelling character because she has real struggles,” he says. “She truly is a single mom. Her parents don’t really support her financially; she does it on her own.
“She really wanted the show all to be real — she gave us no-holds-barred access into her life. We weren’t really allowed to produce it that much; it was like, ‘This is what’s happening in my life, bring your cameras along and let’s document it.’ ”
(Bristol is not a producer and has no creative control over the show. The only thing that was off-limits was tailing her while she worked at a medical office back home. Politics are rarely discussed.)
The one thing that Lutz says he was most surprised to discover about Bristol during filming was that she is “a brave girl.”
“She has a sensitive side and she’s somewhat reserved, but she’s not afraid of a fight,” Lutz says, noting that Bristol played high school football on the boys’ team when she was young.
“This girl doesn’t hold back and I think that’s very admirable.”
In the very first episode, that toughness is on full display when Bristol calmly walks right up to a middle-aged man who verbally attacks her while she’s hanging out with her friends — and taking a turn on a mechanical bull — at an LA restaurant.
Although the incident was well-documented by gossip sites last September, it’s still shocking to hear the invective hurled at the then 20-year-old. (The man repeatedly shouts that Sarah Palin is “a whore,” among other things.)
It’s not until restaurant staffers hustle Bristol outside that she breaks down and has a gut-wrenching reaction.
“As producers, we had reservations about showing that [scene] because it was so raw,” Lutz says. “It wasn’t a moment that we could’ve planned on, it just happened. But, at the end of the day, this is the reality of being a Palin. They’re up against people like this all the time.
The fact that really gets hammered home throughout, he says, is Bristol’s youth. (She gave birth to Tripp when she was 18.)
“She was thrust into the spotlight and never anticipated her life was going to be this way,” Lutz says.
During the series, viewers will quickly see that Bristol’s “main issue in life is making sure that Tripp grows up to be a healthy and well-rounded person,” Lutz says.
That means finding good male role models for him. Johnston is never around. Bristol relies on her father, Todd, and older brother, Track (in Afghanistan at the time), but also turns to Gino for help.
You’ll see that Tripp’s confusion about knowing what to call his mom’s new beau. “Sometimes he calls him Gino, sometimes he calls him ‘daddy,’ ” Lutz says. “It’s a real struggle for Bristol. She wants so bad for Tripp to have a father figure, but Gino’s not his dad and Gino and Bristol aren’t married.”
The first three episodes of “Life’s A Tripp” focus on Bristol, Tripp and Willow’s move to Los Angeles while she volunteered at Help the Children. By episode four, they’re all back in Wasilla.
“That’s when the show really becomes great,” Lutz says, “Because we really see Bristol’s Alaskan roots — this girl is out there, hunting bears, going fishing, taking part in a reindeer run, and we’re just along for the ride.”
BRISTOL PALIN: LIFE’S A TRIPP
Tuesday, 10 p.m., Lifetime