reality tv

Allegations of abuse and drug use: Where Honey Boo Boo's family are now.

Former child star Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson imitated snorting cocaine on her Facebook page last week – four months after her mother, Mama June Shannon, was arrested on drug possession charges.

You may recall Honey Boo Boo, then six, and her stage mum Mama June from Toddlers and Tiaras in 2012.

Alana stood out as the adorable but sassy child, who coined catchphrases such a ‘a dollar makes me holla’ and ‘you’d better redneckognise’. Her mum was the ultimate ‘stage mum’; and viewers loved it.

Alana retired from pageants in 2013, but she and Mama June, now 39, were given their own show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, and continued to make headlines with their personal brand of charm.

The most recent example of that came last week, with Alana’s live appearance on her Facebook, to answer questions from fans. According to TMZ, speaking to her sister, Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon, who was sitting off-camera, Alana swore at her, and pretended with a plastic knife that she was preparing cocaine and inhaling it.

Currently, Alana and her mother – who is awaiting trial for drug possession charges- are not even living together, and their most recent show, Mama June: From Not to Hot, has an increasingly uncertain future.

So how did the family end up here?

 

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How Honey Boo Boo and Mama June became famous.

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo introduced the world to the entire family; dad Mike “Sugar Bear” Thompson, and Alana’s three half-sisters, Anna, Jessica “Chubbs” Shannon, and Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon.

It was a ratings hit. However, in the 2014 fifth season, TLC were forced to cancel production.

Mike and Mama June split, and Mama June began dating a former prisoner, Mark McDaniel. But McDaniel wasn’t just any man who’d served time; he was an ex-boyfriend, who had served a 10-year sentence after being found guilty of molesting Anna when she was eight years old.

The public would not stand for it, delivering significant backlash, and the decision also destroyed the family dynamic.

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The Sun reports that Anna said at the time, “It was crushing for me.

“Mama June and I had moved forwards with our relationship since everything happened when I was younger, but for her to go back to my abuser broke my heart. I felt so angry and betrayed.”

They remain estranged.

 

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After Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

Despite her growing unpopularity, Mama June just couldn’t let being a ‘stage mum’ go.

Alana was committed to appearances on morning television, Dancing With the Stars: Junior, and the talk show The Doctors, where the teenager was diagnosed as obese – which incited further backlash against Mama June.

And yet, the family was signed to a new show in 2017 after Mama June separated from McDaniel; Mama June: From Not to Hot.

The show documented the matriarch’s weight loss journey, and gastric sleeve surgery. The first two seasons were successful, but the third season, which aired earlier this year, saw the family beginning to come undone.

In March, Mama June was charged with possession of cocaine,with her boyfriend Geno Doak – another convicted felon.

When she chose to continue her relationship with Doak over the family’s wishes, Alana was forced to move in with her sister Lauryn, 19, who is now reportedly seeking custody.

 

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In the season finale of the show, which aired in May, the family staged an intervention for Mama June.

“I would love to come home and stay with you, tell you about my day, but I can’t do that because I’m scared,” Alana told her mother.

“I’m scared to stay at your house.”

Alana added later in the episode, “So I really hope this is rock bottom for Mama because once you hit rock bottom, there’s no more going deeper — you can only go up.

“I really hope Mama’s just thinking I just got arrested. I need to get it together. I need to get my s— together.

“If this isn’t her wake-up call, I could possibly lose her forever.”

If Alana’s recent Facebook video imitating drug use is anything to go by, it seems that the teenager just needs one thing now, more than fame: a sober Mama June.