Mama June Addresses Spending Daughter Alana’s Money, Taking Weight Loss Medication and Sobriety (Exclusive)
Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson is trying to forgive and forget when it comes to Mama June and the case of the missing money.
June attempted to set the record straight after her daughter accused her of stealing more than $30,000, telling ET’s Rachel Smith that she had used a portion of Alana’s paychecks from competing on Dancing With the Stars: Juniors and The Masked Singer to cover various living expenses over the years.
“That time was, like, honestly a dark place in my life,” June said, clarifying that the money in question was never deposited into Alana’s Coogan account — a bank account specifically for child performers that renders funds non-accessible until they turn 18.
June added that she had been advised by other parents of young actors, as well as lawyers, that she should only put a portion into the account while using the remainder to “live off.”
“That’s the truth,” she said. “It wasn’t just mainly spent on me, no.”
Seated with her mother during ET’s interview, Alana said she has “tried to move past it.”
She explained, “I thought that 100 percent of that money was going into that account, so I thought once I got old enough that I could really sit on my a** for the four years that I’m in college because I worked so long. I worked, I was six, and a lot of people cannot say that. So I worked really hard for what I have and the money that I have, so I was assuming or under the assumption she put 100 percent of the money in there, but that’s not how that worked.”
Asked whether she’s been repaid, Alana added, “I can’t say that right now.”
She continued, “I have been trying to get over it and trying to push through it.”
The drama has been unfolding on the current season of Mama June: Family Crisis, with the family matriarch saying at one point that she “legally put 20 percent” into the account. “I don’t give a f**k,” she said on the show. “Take me to court.”
Today, June is nearing her fifth anniversary of sobriety. She tells ET that, in the aftermath of daughter Anna “Chickadee” Cardwell’s death in December, she’s laser focused on staying sober.
“Dealing with that,” she said, “it kinda, like, sucks for me in a way because everybody is, like, waiting for me to jump off the edge.”
She continued, “I have her daughters to think about.”
Looking back on her own journey, June added, “I don’t even know who that person was five years ago.”
June also addressed her weight loss journey, sharing that she’s dropped almost 30 pounds in nine weeks through her use of weight loss drugs.
Daughter Lauryn “Pumpkin” Efird said June has gone “a little overboard with it.”
“Mama’s thing is like, when she’s really strict on herself, she’s really strict on herself,” Lauryn admitted.
In addition to the medication, June said she’s also working out “three to four times a week” and has changed her eating habits. And while it’s a noted change from her 2015 gastric sleeve surgery, she’s hoping that a slow and steady strategy will have lasting effects after she gained between 120 and 130 pounds over the last year.
“Even though I’m losing weight, I’m only about three to four pounds a week,” she said. “It isn’t as fast as a gastric sleeve or a gastric bypass, but it is doing it, like, more safer.”
June’s goal, she revealed, is between 170 and 180 pounds.
“I still have about 74.2 pounds to go,” she said.
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