Love During Lockup viewers haven’t seen much of Max’s inmate bae Tara Medlock this season. All we’ve been given is audio of her talking on the phone and a series of rather striking mug shots and candid photos. After teasing us (and Max) with a big reveal via a video call, Tara was a no show, leaving everybody disappointed.

For those viewers wanting to actually meet Tara and get that video conversation with her that we were promised, YouTuber According To Amber has delivered! She recently shared a lengthy interview with Tara in which Tara opens up about pretty much everything — including her relationship with Max and his thirst for stardom. (Full interview included below.)

SPOILER ALERT

One thing you will quickly realize while watching the interview is that Tara is most certainly not a catfish! Another thing you will notice is that Tara is not in prison.

She reveals in the interview that she got out of prison in early August — which she says was just a few weeks after she signed on to do the show. She is currently on probation, and will remain so until September of this year.

As you will find out in the interview, we probably won’t be seeing much of Tara on Love During Lockup this season. That’s really unfortunate because she seems like a very smart and very funny person. I confess that I would have enjoyed watching her brush Max off in person!

Tara And Max’s Relationship

Tara says that her first contact with Max was via an email and a couple of letters that he sent her. “I didn’t respond right away because of his age,” Tara reveals. She points out that she’s currently 38 and Max was either 23 or 24 at the time that he initially wrote her.

However, Tara eventually gave in to his advances. “He was persistent, and wanting to talk to me, and to meet me,” she says. “I had nothing else better to do, so I was, like, ‘OK. Maybe we can just be friends, blah, blah.’ So, we started talking briefly.”

So what was Max like during their conversations? “He was, um, very into himself,” Tara recalls. “[He] loved the way he looked, loved all of
his accomplishments. And you know, he should be proud of himself for, you know, all of his achievements and everything else. But, at that point, I wanted to know more about, you know, other things.”

Tara says she stopped talking to Max for about a month. Then, he contacted her again asking to rekindle their friendship — and to make a pitch. “‘I want to ask you about this TV show maybe you would be interested in,'” Tara recalls Max saying.

Tara was curious, and asked Max for more information. “He had reached out to them about the show, and I don’t know exactly if he said that I would cooperate or if I would be interested at all.” Regardless of what Max told producers, Tara wasn’t interested in the beginning.

“At first, I was, like, ‘Man, that’s just not for me.’ Nobody is proud of being in prison. I have two beautiful children I have to think about, you know?” Tara says she wanted to protect her children and didn’t want to “blast that their mother’s been in prison.”

Tara decided that she would ask those who would be most impacted about her doing the show. “I waited and I talked to my family, and they were supportive about it.”

As Tara was still mulling over whether or not to be on Love During Lockup, Max was moving the process along. Approximately a week after she told him “maybe” and “not like a solid yes,” Tara got a letter from producers.

Max couldn’t seem to fully convince Tara to get on board with the show, but the producers won her over. “They were so cool, so nice, so easy to work with,” Tara recalls. “They deal with, you know, different locked up shows and people, so they’re used to, uh, the more colorful crowd. And they were great. They were really, really great. They honestly were really the ones that really got me and…talked me into it.”

Tara’s Prison Release

Tara says she signed on to do the show, and roughly three weeks later she was released from prison. “I think they wanted to do the whole ‘pick you up from prison’ thing. They wanted to video shoot that…But I’d already made plans with my child, with my daughter, to come and get me, and we just wanted it to be more of a family [thing]…I just wanted to spend some time with my kids and my family. They’re such a huge support system for me, my daughter especially.”

Tara then seems to reveal that the phone conversation(s) she had with Max on screen weren’t actually while she was in prison?

“I talked to the producer the next day after I got out, and we started that day with me doing a phone call with Max,” Tara tells Amber. “And Max and I hadn’t even spoke on the phone before that!”

Amber asks Tara if Max ever came to visit her while she was in prison. “He did not. He sent me a couple modeling pictures, and I never spoke to him on the phone.” Tara then walks her statement back a bit. “Well, we were supposed to do a video chat at the prison or whatever,” she says, before revealing that it never happened — which does line up with what Love During Lockup viewers saw on screen.

However, Tara clarifies that she didn’t stand Max up. “I know the show kind of portrays that, like, I just ghosted him and didn’t show up and didn’t want to talk to him. I was, in fact, there at the video visit.” Tara explains that it was a complicated process getting approval for the video call, and in the end there was some sort of error. “I tried to log on and it just would not — it was not an accepted user. So, I did not stand him up.”

Amber then asks Tara to confirm that she and Max were just friends and not in any sort of romantic relationship. “I guess for [Max] to tell it and for me to tell it, it’s gonna be two different things,” Tara says, adding that, from her viewpoint, “we were not in a relationship at all and we were friends.”

#LoveDuringLockup Did you know Max is a male escort? You can rent him for 2 hours for $650. Or, you can rent him for the whole week for a mere $17,500! (I'm not sure if there is a Max tax added) https://t.co/x6ONOm8k4U

— Starcasm (@starcasm) January 15, 2022

Tara On Max Wanting Fame

Despite the relationship just being a friendship, Tara says that she believed Max hoped that it would become friends with benefits after they actually met, with at least one of those benefits being fame and attention due to the show.

“I think [Max] was hoping that once I met him and everything that I would change my mind.” Tara says that she just couldn’t imagine that happening given their age difference. She adds that she thought Max was heavily motivated “because he wants to be in stardom so bad.”

Tara even reveals that she once tried to pass Max off to another female inmate she was bunking with. “She spoke to him one time and she was, like, ‘Tara! don’t do that to me again!'”

So who would be a good match for Max? “I think that if he found someone that matched his energy, that was wanting to do the whole stardom thing as well and make it out there, you know?” Tara says. “Maybe Max can TikTok his little heart out and, you know, make it that way.” Tara laughs as she shares these insights.

Did Max ever send Tara money while she was in prison? “I really didn’t go there,” Tara says. “I doubt that he would have even done it anyway because at one point I was talking to him he had to move out of his house. He was looking for a place to live. He didn’t know what he was going to do. He was just all over the place.”

Tara says she was worried about him, and mentions his masters degree in biochemistry. “I never heard him really express that he wanted to do…anything in that field. So I don’t know if that was something that his family was more pushing for him to do and have or what. Because going from a biochemist to an escort is like one extreme to the other. And I’m an extremist. I get it.”

I will include the full interview below, and I highly recommend watching the whole thing! Tara talks about her arrest history and the impact that the bad decisions she has made continue to have on her life. She provides an update on her current situation, including whether or not she will follow in Max’s footsteps by creating an OnlyFans account.

Oh, and Tara also opens up about another little tidbit about herself — she’s currently married! Like I said, you really should watch the whole interview! Here’s the video:

To keep up with Tara, be sure to give her a follow in Instagram. Her account is @tara_medlock. To watch how her story unfolds on screen, tune in for new episodes of Love During Lockup airing Friday nights at 9/8c on WE tv.

On a side note, I was a bit confused by the timeline for Tara and Max’s relationship. They signed on to do the show just three weeks before she was released? And that wasn’t an early release. Why would they film a couple for Love During Lockup if the inmate was getting out in less than a month? That kind of goes against the whole concept of the show, right?

My guess is that Max and Tara actually signed up for Love After Lockup. However, when filming their meet up after Tara’s release fell through, they had to nix that idea.

In the press release for Love During Lockup it mentions that Max likes to date multiple inmates, so I’m guessing that producers just moved him over to the new show and will add another incarcerated inmate or two for Max to woo.

Another reason that producers might have been motivated to get Max on Love During Lockup is the fact that every other convict on the show is male. Plus, Tara definitely fits the #HotFelon bill that the show likes to use to promote the Love After Lockup franchise. (Tara really is very attractive. I’ll be surprised if she hasn’t already had Daonte sliding in her DMs.)

I also get the same show shifting vibes from Santiba and Talsey. They filmed their segments roughly two years ago, with Talsey being released in May of 2020! (Check out our Santiba and Talsey spoilers post here.) The couple’s relationship reportedly fell apart before they had the chance to meet in person. I’m guessing that producers decided to use that footage and just add Santiba and Talsey to Love During Lockup.

This is all purely speculation on my part, though!

Meet the cast of @WEtv's new #LoveAfterLockup show #LoveDuringLockup! Includes photos and bios for the 6-ish couples. PLUS, a brand new preview trailer! Premieres Friday, Jan 7 at 9/8c. #LifeAfterLockup https://t.co/RtIlFE1ZEo

— Starcasm (@starcasm) December 4, 2021

Asa Hawks is a writer and editor for Starcasm. You can contact Asa via Twitter, Facebook, or email at starcasmtips(at)yahoo.com