‘16 and Pregnant’ star dead at 23

PHILADELPHIA — Valerie Fairman, 23, who starred on the second season of MTV’s “16 and Pregnant,” has died. She was pronounced dead Wednesday afternoon at Brandywine Hospital, the Coatesville Police Department confirmed, after a call was made about a possible overdose.

The Chester County Coroner’s Office confirmed the investigation into the exact cause of death is still ongoing, but TMZ reports from sources say that Fairman died of an overdose. Fairman’s substance abuse issues were documented on her episode of “16 and Pregnant.”

Fairman’s daughter, 7-year-old Nevaeh, is with Fairman’s mother, TMZ reports. In 2015, Fairman, of Oxford, Pa., was arrested for prostitution in Delaware, along with seven other women.

In 2010, Fairman and her then-boyfriend, Matt, were featured on the second season of “16 and Pregnant,” the forerunner to MTV’s popular “Teen Mom” series that came to define the network in its reality-TV heyday. Episodes, running from 2009 to 2014, focused on young women who became pregnant; the subsequent “Teen Mom” followed them through early motherhood. The series have been praised for showing the hardships of teen parenting, and criticized for glamorizing it and making celebrities out of the women featured.

“We are saddened by the news of Valerie Fairman’s passing,” an MTV spokesperson told Variety.