Here's Why Honey Boo Doesn't Live With Her Mom Anymore

Here comes the tea on Honey Boo Boo. The reality TV star Alana "Honey Boo Boo" Thompson, most known for being a child beauty pageant contestant and her antics with her family on the TLC show "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," is still living with her half-sister, Lauryn "Pumpkin" Shannon (via People). After a Disney vacation photo was posted to Pumpkin's Instagram account, one fan asked if Alana was "with her mom or with her dad" right now, to which Pumpkin replied, "she's still with me."

Honey Boo Boo has been staying with her sister since her mother, June "Mama June" Shannon, was arrested for controlled substance possession back in 2019. Since then, Mama June's daughters have completely cut ties with her, according to E! Online. Alana even said in the season finale of "Mama June: From Not to Hot" that she was staying with her sister "not by choice," but because she's scared of living with her mom (via Entertainment Tonight).

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Living with her sister hasn't been easy. Pumpkin and her husband, Joshua Efird, have basically been helping to raise the 16-year-old, while also caring for their 4-year-old daughter Ella and son Bentley, who turns one soon. Meanwhile Pumpkin recently had her own family news to share. She is currently pregnant with twins due in June 2022 (via Page Six). According to TMZ, one twin is a boy and one is a girl. That will bring a very full house to the soon-to-be mother of four.

Going from taking care of Alana as a child to caring for a teenager has also been an adjustment. Pumpkin even revealed that being a "sister mom" is difficult and at the end of the day, Honey Boo Boo still needs her actual mom (via Yahoo! News). Pumpkin shared, "It's been very difficult because ... she is younger and she needs her mom. So it's been very hard for both me and her to adjust to me being her 'sister mom,'" she added. "She's lived with her mom her entire life and now she had to uproot and move out of that home and move in with us."

Despite the damage that has been done, the family still has hopes to one day reunite, according to In Touch Weekly. In the past couple of years, Mama June has been working on herself to make that happen.

Mama June has been sober since January 2020. She shared how she feels about her progress with Entertainment Tonight "I don't ever want to go back to that lifestyle. I wake up every morning and tell myself, 'I'm going to stay clean these next 24 hours.' And that's my saying, every day."

Though clean and sober now, her drug use has greatly affected her daughter, Alana, who opened up to Teen Vogue saying, "A lot of folks in this world do not realize how many people are actually really affected by drug and alcohol [use]," she explained. "It's very, very hard. It's something I'd wish on nobody, for real."

Alana went on to talk about how scary it actually was to have a mother so addicted to drugs, "When my mama got real bad with her [drug use], I didn't know where I was going to end up." Alana says she's proud her mom now for working on herself.

Honey Boo Boo and Mama June continue to work on their relationship. June recently came to her daughter's defense when Alana received hateful comments after posting a pic of her and her boyfriend, Dralin Carswell on Instagram (via Page Six). June said, "She is getting a lot of hate because she's in an interracial relationship, he is older."

Carswell is 20 years old, a full four years older than 16-year-old Honey Boo Boo. June continued, "Alana has grown up, she's graduating high school next year, guys! People need to realize that she's going to be 17 in August." 

June also brought up the fact that Alana and Dralin are the same age as Pumpkin and her husband Joshua were when they started dating, and speculated that it wasn't so much the age difference that spurred on trolls as it was the interracial aspect.  

Yet Mama June has no long-term plans for Honey Boo Boo's relationship, telling Entertainment Tonight, "They're [young] and they've been together over a year. So, if they last? Fine. If they don't, it can be her first love."