Check out The Ashley‘s interview with The New York Post, in print and online today!

Moving on up:MTV wants more affluent ‘16 & Pregnant’ girls

By SEAN DALY

MTV is revamping its controversial docu-series 16 & Pregnant.

The show’s fourth season — which begins later this month — will feature teen moms from more affluent backgrounds, The Post has learned.

“I think in the past, they were so concerned with getting drama that they chose a lot of girls that were complete train wrecks,” says The Ashley, editor of TheAshleysRealityRoundup.com, which covers the show extensively.

“16 & Pregnant” was among the network’s highest-rated shows, averaging 2 million viewers last year. And it is certainly one of its most-talked about.

But since their episodes aired, “at least two of the girls have gotten pregnant again,” The Ashley notes. “And nearly all of them have been in trouble with the law — as have most of their baby daddies.”

Hoping to distance itself from the public backlash, producers sought out more “all-American” girls, The Ashley says — including high school cheerleaders from two well-to-do families.

“MTV received such criticism for last season’s girls — in addition to the legal drama of its ‘Teen Mom’ stars— that they purposely chose girls who wouldn’t make them look as bad,” she says.

According to The Ashley, who keeps in regular contact with the cast members for her authoritative blog, the network is so desperate to repair its show’s reputation that two potential troublemakers were bounced and replaced at the last minute.

“One got the boot, because she thought she was pregnant again after filming,” she tells The Post. “The other got kicked off because she falsely represented herself to MTV.”

MTV yesterday said producers sometimes do “exploratory shoots” to determine which girls to feature on the show — suggesting that some who claimed to be dropped had really not been “greenlit” for the series in the first place,

The network has not yet released the names of the new cast, but according to The Ashley, they include:

* Lindsey Harrison, 17 — a model and former cage fighter from Reno, Nev. Her daughter was born a month early and weighed less than 6 pounds at birth.

* Katie Yeager, 18 — a college student from Wyoming whose father is a well-known Sprint car racer.

* Hope Harbert, 18 — a model from Lee’s Summit, Mo., who claims to have gotten pregnant the first time she had sex.

* Mackenzie Douthit — a cheerleader from rural Oklahoma. During filming, her boyfriend gets into a serious car accident.

* Brianna DeJesus, 17 — a college student, originally from Brooklyn, who struggles with her decision to keep her baby after her older sister chose to terminate her pregnancy.