June and daughters Alana, Lauryn and Jessica open up about how much things have changed, as they sit down for a rare interview together after years of discord in the family.
June Shannon and her daughters are in a better place now than they’ve been for years — but it wasn’t easy.
Sitting down with TooFab ahead of the new season of Mama June: Family Crisis, the matriarch and her three daughters — Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson, Lauryn “Pumpkin” Efird and Jessica “Chubbs” Shannon — opened up about how they were able to put their messy past behind them and finally get on the same page.
The interview is one of the first they’ve done together in years, after doing promo for the show separately in recent seasons. Among the issues between mother and daughters in the past were June’s drug use, as well as claims she took money from Alana. With June now sober and, apparently, squared up with Honey Boo Boo over their financials, the family dynamic is headed in the right direction.
For the girls, however, getting to this point was never a guarantee.
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“I definitely think there’s been times in our arguments and stuff, there’s times I just thought, ‘Fine, I’m done, I’m just going to be done with this situation,” Lauryn told TooFab. “I think we’ve all been at our wits end at some point.”
“But for us, it’s kind of like, we are all we’ve ever known. It’s always kind of been us four girls,” she continued. “Sticking together, talking it out and communicating does fix a lot of issues and actions being louder than words is a big statement for us.”
“You have to figure it out,” added June, stressing how important it is for the four women to stick together. “Our circle is very, very small, so it does take a lot to let somebody in outside of this.”
“There was definitely times where I didn’t know if we would be able to find resolution for it,” Alana said of her money issues, after accusing June of spending $30,000 she earned from appearing on Dancing with the Stars and The Masked Singer.
“Mama was fighting so hard tooth and nail, but we figured it out,” she added, teasing fans will have to watch to see how they got to where they are now. “We’re here today, so that says a lot.”
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Alana ‘Honey Boo Boo’ Thompson on Mama June’s Drug Addiction, Where They Stand Now
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For Lauryn, what made moving forward all the more difficult was just how many problematic issues popped up in quick succession.
“Just all of it, if I’m being honest,” she said when asked what was hardest to get past. “All of it happened so quickly, with the addiction, then the money thing and all that stuff. I feel like that all came, bang, bang, bang, all back together, so you didn’t have time to process each thing.”
They all, however, credit June’s husband, Justin Stroud, with helping broker the peace — as he’s been seen on the family’s show pushing June to mend things with her daughters.
“I do think that Justin held her accountable,” added Lauryn. “I do think Justin, he’s just so good to Mama. He holds her accountable for a lot of things and together they’re an unstoppable duo.”
The four have also come together to help raise the late Anna “Chickadee” Cardwell’s daughter, after June’s daughter died from cancer in 2023. June now has custody of Kaitlyn, who turns 13 in July.
“It has been rough, but what people don’t realize is that we, when Kaitlyn was really small, we raised her a lot those first years,” shared June. “Having a teenager in the house was very different for me and Justin. She’s a sassy teenager sometimes and sometimes she’s good, that’s just a typical teenager.”
Mama June: Family Crisis airs Fridays on WE tv.
