Honey Boo Boo and her relatives have shared everything about their family through the
world of reality TV.
However, what started off as an entertaining toddler and her eccentric family going about
their everyday lives, soon turned into the tragic story of a spiraling-down family having
to cope with a mother battling with substance abuse.
It seems like Mama June had been battling demons of her own for a long time.
So what caused her to turn on her own children and spend all their savings all on her addiction?
Will she ever be able to redeem herself for the hurt that she's caused those closest to
her?
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June Eideth Shannon, better known as Mama June had a personality just as big as her
daughters, and her parenting methods, and cooking skills, were sometimes questionable.
But the entertainment was undeniable, and nothing short of reality TV gold.
Sadly the show took a dark turn when Mama June's addiction to illegal substances was
brought to light on the show and her children's welfare was suddenly put at risk.
After what seemed to be a fabulous comeback, losing over 300 pounds and having her teeth
fixed, Mama June regressed back into her drug addiction and the whole world was there to
see it.
What nobody knew was that Mama June had fought this battle of addiction before and her inner
demons were beginning to come to the surface.
At the age of just 14, June fell pregnant with her first child, Anna "Chickadee" Cardwell
in 1994.
She dropped out of high school to take care of her daughter, barely a teenager herself.
One can only imagine the challenges she had to face as such a young mom.
Her youth was taken away from her, and instead of being able to go out with her friends,
attending prom, or working on her grades, June had to be a mother.
Shannon revealed that she lost her virginity to a classmate when she was just 12 years
old.
She also admitted to dating much older men who were in their 20's or 30's.
"I was just honestly looking for the attention I wasn't getting at home."
The young mother was also introduced to illegal substances when she was in her teens.
"I was always around drugs growing up," she admitted.
"My sister and brother-in-law sold drugs.
In order to keep up with the three jobs she was working, along with being a mother, June
turned to substance just to prevent herself from crashing.
Eventually, her addiction got so bad that she ended up losing her vision in her left
eye.
Despite partially losing her vision, June didn't stop using drugs until much later in
2004.
June went on to have four children, each with a different father and never married.
One of her most well-known relationships was with 'Sugar Bear' or Mike Thompson, Alana's
father.
However, the couple split after June found out that Mike had several dating profiles
online and had been cheating on her with both men and women.
He later confessed to having a sex addiction and begged for her forgiveness, but June's
heart was shattered, and she couldn't trust him anymore.
After that, June thought that she'd never been able to love again, Sugar Bear had been
what she thought to be the love of her life.
But soon, another one of her relationships would come to light, and lead to the cancellation
of Honey Boo Boo's show.
Honey Boo Boo, also known as Alana Thompson, needs no introduction.
Her adorable personality and sassy attitude made the audience's hearts melt when they
first lay eyes on her on the reality show Toddlers
and Tiaras.
She made such a big impression that she was offered her OWN reality show.
When the cancellation of Honey Boo Boo's show was announced, fans were shocked and demanded
an answer.
The shocking news was then revealed that June was dating convicted child molester Mark McDaniel.
Believe it or not, but the news gets more shocking … Mark was convicted for molesting
June's own daughter, Anna.
Back in 2002, June had dated Mark for quite some time.
It wasn't until Anna revealed to one of her school teachers that her mother's boyfriend
had been touching her inappropriately and making her do things to him that she didn't
like, that her teacher went to report the abuse to the police.
Anna was just eight years old.
Unfortunately, when she revealed the abuse to her mother, June didn't believe her own
daughter.
'A week or so after it happened, I talked to Mama and she was upset, crying and saying,
"I don't believe you, I don't believe you, why would you do this to me?"' she remembered.
Mike was convicted and sent to prison for ten years.
However, after his release and following the split from Sugar Bear, Mama June was spotted
with the ex-convict and it was alleged that the pair had reunited.
Anna, of course, was shocked to think that her mother would get back together with the
man who has assaulted her own daughter, and as soon as the producers of Honey Boo Boo's
show caught wind that Mama June was dating a convicted child molester, the show was canceled.
June denied the allegations, but it was too late.
The damage was done.
She did whatever she could to clean up her reputation, which included her massive weight
loss surgery which cost over $75 000, and a brand new TV show of her own.
She looked better than ever before, and finally, she was getting her life back on track.
She was so proud of herself, she vowed to never pick the weight back up ever again.
It seemed for a while that all was forgiven, and with all of the new attention came a new
man, Geno Doak.
For a while, all seemed well in June's world of reality TV.
She was managing to keep the weight off, she was in a happy new relationship, and the show
itself was raking in a small fortune.
Audiences hoped that perhaps things had changed for the better for the Shannon family.
but things soon started to change when her behavior took a turn for the worst.
"I got hooked up with the same people, and guess what I started doing?
I started doing meth again.
It was s**tty this time, but…it was the only drug I had ever done at that point."
At first, Geno tried to get June to stop the substance abuse, and she did turn it down
a notch, but not all of it.
At that point, all of her children knew that she was taking drugs, and so did the production
crew of her show.
"I would always tell my kids what was in our bodies, in case, God forbid, something happened.
My kids did know.
They didn't know to what extent but they knew what was going on."
For sometime, June was under the impression that her addiction was under control, but
it was far from it, and sadly Geno joined in on the abuse.
By that time June was almost unrecognizable.
She no longer looked like the dolled up Mama June everyone had come to know and love.
Her hair was frazzled, her teeth were falling apart.
She no longer cared what she looked like to the world, the only thing she cared about
was getting high, and nothing was going to stop her.
Not even her own daughters.
Even after her daughter, Lauryn, also known as 'Pumpkin', confronted her and begged her
to stop using drugs, June wouldn't hear it.
She simply made an attempt to 'hide' what she was doing, but it was useless.
Everyone on the show knew what was really happening behind the scenes, and soon the
whole world was going to find out too.
In 2019, the world was shocked to find out that both Geno and June had been arrested
for the possession of illegal substances.
"Me and Geno was fightin' so cops was called to a convenience store and they locked us
up.
We got drug charges.
They found a needle on him."
After they had been released, it was like nothing had changed.
Instead of returning home, the couple bounced from motel to motel, spending up to $4000
a day on illegal substances.
She had completely abandoned her children and Lauryn had to step up to take care of
her younger siblings even though she had a daughter of her own.
No one was more heartbroken than Alana, who wanted nothing more than to have the mother
that she knew and loved back into her life.
She was being taken care of by her sister, when all she wanted was to be back in the
arms of her beloved Mama June.
Finally, when the couple returned home, the family and production team had planned an
intervention, insisting that June went to rehab.
However, Geno refused and June wouldn't go to get help for her addiction without him.
Eventually, after hours of convincing, the pair agreed to go to a facility to get help.
Unfortunately, it wasn't more than 12 hours later that they had run away, and June had
abandoned her children yet again.
"I was actually pushed [into treatment] by our production team.
They were like, 'If you don't go, we're going to call DFCS [Department of Family & Child
Services].
I was there for 11 or 12 hours.
I was pushed.
I wasn't ready.
I honestly believe that if you're not ready, you're going to leave."
By this point, June and Geno were broke.
She had spent every cent she had saved from her daughter's reality TV show and her own.
So, June went on to sell everything she owned.
She sold her house, along with all her and her daughters' belongings in it, she sold
her jewelry and even her daughter's car.
However, they eventually ran out of things to sell and no
longer had the money for motel rooms.
The pair resorted to living in her truck.
While June was out spending the family's entire life savings on illegal substances, Lauryn
was barely managing to take her sisters, along with her own daughter.
She struggled to pay the bills, get food on the table and make ends meet.
She was furious that her mother had abandoned her and left her responsible for everyone.
She felt heartbroken and betrayed that her mother had chosen drugs over her own daughters.
After living in June's truck for a few days, it was then that the couple finally decided
that it was time to enter rehab.
They had nothing left.
All the money was gone.
This was their rock bottom.
So they went to seek the help they so desperately needed.
"We felt confident in ourselves that we could do it, and we wanted to show everybody that
we could do it, now that we had clean time and stuff.
After 25 days we were dismissed after completing the program.
I realized at that point I wanted to do it."
Despite having completed the program, June has still yet to mend the relationship with
her daughters.
After all the damage and heartache that she caused them, they're still not sure if their
mother is truly done with
illegal substances.
So, Mama June is out to seek redemption from those that she's let down and hurt countless
times.
The question remains, will she ever be able to redeem herself?
Should her daughters forgive her?
Let us know in the comments below what you think.