Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson admitted she is anxious about what her mom, “Mama June” Shannon, will consider her upcoming Lifetime biopic.
“I’m a bit nervous,” the 19-year-old informed Individuals on Tuesday concerning the Could 17 launch of “I used to be Honey Boo Boo,” during which she opens up about what she and her sisters endured as they witnessed their mother spiral into drug dependancy.
“I didn’t need this film to be throwing punches at my mama and making her out to be the dangerous man,” she defined. “However I didn’t maintain again, and if she will get mad, on the finish of the day, it’s the reality.”
Following her rise to fame on TLC’s “Toddlers & Tiaras” as a younger magnificence queen, Thompson turned the star of her personal present, “Right here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” in 2012.
Nonetheless, what was meant to be a light-hearted collection shortly turned one thing extra critical when Shannon, now 45, turned hooked on crack cocaine.
“I observed one thing was off about her,” Thompson remembered. “She began locking her doorways, which actually made me assume, ‘Oh, what’s she doing?’”
In 2019, Shannon and her boyfriend on the time, Eugene “Geno” Doak, have been arrested and charged with felony possession of medication.
“Individuals have been like, ‘I noticed your mama on the information with a busted tooth, strung out,’” Thompson recalled to the journal. “I’m like, ‘Nice, like I didn’t see that too.’”
Shannon later admitted to spending greater than $1 million on the peak of her dependancy, together with $35,000 of Thompson’s pay from “Dancing With the Stars.
By 2022, Thompson’s sister Lauryn “Pumpkin” Efird, now 25, gained custody of Thompson and helped her graduate from highschool. She is now a nursing scholar at Regis College in Denver.
“I simply at all times informed myself, you realize, that you just need to do one thing higher along with your life and larger along with your life than simply being on TV, so that you’ve acquired to rise up and go, you’ve acquired to graduate so you can also make it to varsity and be the nurse that you just need to be,” she informed Individuals.
After Shannon returned Thompson’s cash with out an apology, the mother-daughter duo reconciled.
Nonetheless, forgiving her mother — who’s now 5 years sober and married to Justin Stroud — “was exhausting.”
“On the finish of the day, she’s my mother,” Thompson famous. “When she was dangerous in her dependancy, I simply stored fascinated with the day she’d recuperate.
“We’re going fairly good. Hopefully it lasts. I simply now not have any expectations for her.”
When requested about her previous arrest and drug addictions, Shannon informed Individuals, “I don’t bear in mind who that individual was as a result of I’ve labored a lot on myself.”
Along with Thompson and Efird, Shannon is a mother to Anna “Chickadee” Cardwell, who died of most cancers in 2023 at age 29, and Jessica “Chubbs” Shannon, 28.
“I Was Honey Boo Boo” premieres Could 17 at 8 p.m. ET on Lifetime.
For those who or somebody you care about is affected by any of the problems raised on this story, name SAMHSA’s Nationwide Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
