14 DAY TRIAL // June Shannon, known as Mama June on TLC’s now-defunct reality series Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, sat down for an interview with Dr. Phil, hoping to set the record straight on rumors that she’s dating a registered child molester who was just released from prison after serving time for abusing her own daughter, Chickadee (Anna Cardwell).
The interview was also meant to help her clean her reputation a bit, and hopefully continue making money off the career TLC started for her. Instead, it got her to dig her hole a bit deeper, because she lied from start to finish.
She changed her story, failed to answer questions, gave stupid explanations and ultimately proved that she has no awareness of what’s going on around her. Even Dr. Phil believes that the 3 minor kids she still has in her custody are worse off for being with her.
What started it all?
A few weeks ago, June was photographed with a man named Mark McDaniel, whom she had dated some 12 years back and who was locked away on child abuse charges. In a very short while, it emerged that the child he had abused was actually June’s own daughter, who was 8 at the time. Chickadee was raised by her maternal grandmother afterwards.
Despite photos proving that they had a romantic relationship, and evidence showing that she bought him a car and even went house-hunting with him, Shannon first denied everything, starting with the fact that she’d seen him since release. She eventually owned up to meeting with him, but only on 2 occasions.
Meanwhile, Chickadee has been talking to the press and offering a full account of what happened to her – and how shocked and upset she is that her mother could welcome this kind of monster back in her bed, and even worse, into the same house that 3 minor girls live in.
When the scandal started, TLC pulled the plug on the show, which was nearly done shooting its fifth season that won’t ever air. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo was trashy but very popular, controversial but loved by wide audiences, which explains how it managed to resist in this reality show-saturated landscape for this long.
Mama June claims she’s innocent
So June has every reason to go out of her way now to make people believe her: she’s lost her steady income and she must be growing desperate. She put on her curlers, got a dye-job and a full face of makeup, and tried to redeem herself on Dr. Phil.
Embedded below are 2 teasers from the show, and the complete interview; the latter will probably be pulled soon. The other video is a chat between Dr. Phil and TMZ, in which he admits he didn’t believe a single word of what June said.
With good reason too!
For starters, Mama June insisted that she only met with McDaniel twice, both times by pure accident. She says that pretty much in the same breath as she says that she contacted him because her 14-year-old daughter Pumpkin wanted “closure” and some questions answered.
One of these questions was whether he was Pumpkin’s real father, which Pumpkin claims she never got to ask him because she was ashamed. But the meeting was “satisfying” for her, she adds.
June insists that she didn’t do anything to help her other daughter Chickadee because she had no idea about what happened between her and McDaniel. She was at work when the abuse occurred and she didn’t know about it until 2 and a half years ago – this, despite her admission last week that she knew about the abuse from the start, but she never believed Chickadee.
Mama June has no grasp on reality
Asked if she believes TLC canceled the family’s show because of her connection to a registered pedophile, June offers the stupidest explanation possible: that had nothing to do with it, TLC canceled because the girls were “tired.”
Because most networks shoot an entire season before pulling the plug on a show.
“Honestly, after two-and-a-half years, the girls were starting to get worn out,” she said. “You could tell they were starting to not want to do it anymore. And I had mentioned that to the production company. The production company said, ‘Do you all want us to pull out right now? Do you all want us to stop filming?’ I think that had a big decision to do with it also,” she added.
Her reasoning is notable in the interview: her only “mistake” was that of getting in contact with McDaniel, even if she did it by accident / with the purpose of offering Pumpkin closure, so TLC couldn’t have punished her by axing the show for something so insignificant.
By the way, TLC is still paying for the kids’ tuition and their salaries for the episodes that will never air.
Watch the entire infuriating interview in the video below. In case it gets pulled, Gawker has segments with the most shameless lies she told during the chat. On a final note, Dr. Phil grilled her like a sandwich.
