In her candid interview, Samantha reveals the truth behind her painful childhood. Her parents' marriage fell apart when she was five years old because of her father's alcohol abuse and his violence toward their mother during his binges. She began eating for comfort, and by age 7, she already weighed 150 pounds. When her mother went to nursing school to earn a better living for her family, Samantha was sent to live with her father for a year. Her dad and new stepmom restricted her meals in an effort to keep her weight down, but Samantha rebelled by splurging when she was with her mother. "I didn't want to be told what to eat," she explained.
This set the stage for a lifetime of unhealthy eating and steady weight gain; by high school, she weighed 400 pounds. She dropped out of school at 17, and almost immediately became pregnant by her then-boyfriend. They broke up shortly after daughter Bella was born, by which time Mason's weight had ratcheted up to 500 pounds.
Then came the biggest heartache of all: Her father was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident. Once again, Samantha turned to food to fill the hole, and the habit only became worse over time. "Food can fill me up and give me comfort," she says in the debut episode. "No matter how much I eat, it's never enough."
