14 DAY TRIAL // TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo has returned for a fourth season but, for once, it’s not to record ratings and glowing reviews: Honey Boo Boo’s promotional appearance on Jimmy Fallon, where she acted like a tiny insufferable monster, has made sure of that.
To add insult to injury, beside the prospect that TLC may have to redneckognize that the time is coming to call it a day on Honey Boo Boo and her ever so colorful family, they’re also to address rumors that much of the series is actually fake.
You have to understand, one of the reasons why so many people tuned in for and loved Here Comes Honey Boo Boo was that there was something about this family that felt very real, unlike it happened with other reality stars.
Mama June, Honey Boo Boo’s mother, repeatedly said that this was who they were, hinting that there was no degree of fakery or scripted programming about what we saw on the series.
Well, no more.
Radar Online claims to have it on very good authority that at least two major events from the family’s busy life, one of which was shown on the premiere episode, have been faked – in the sense of being recreated for the cameras, after occurring when the crew wasn’t present.
One of these two events is Anna Shannon’s move from her parents’ home, which was shown on the season 4 premiere. Radar says that Anna actually said in April that she had already moved with her now-husband Michael Cardwell and their daughter Kaitlyn.
So the move actually happened in September 2013, but TLC had the family reenact it for the cameras and then presented the scene as if it happened “long after” Anna’s December engagement.
Speaking of the engagement, this is the second case of fakery: “during the season 3 finale, Caldwell proposes to Anna at a big New Year’s Eve party— but a source says the couple actually got engaged nearly two weeks prior on December 19!,” Radar reports.
An insider familiar with the show confirms that TLC producers had Anna and Michael redo the engagement on New Year’s Eve to make it “seem more dramatic.”
And, while viewers expect this from other reality shows (take Kim Kardashian for example, who is said to have made Kris Humphries propose to her several times until she felt satisfied with getting the “right” take), with Honey Boo Boo and the family, this comes as a shock, particularly because they and TLC always made such a huge fuss about how “real” they were.
If you remember, in one particular interview on the topic, Mama June even compared her family to the Kardashians, insisting on two aspects: number one, that she wasn’t doing it for the money and fame but as a means to provide for the children; and number two, that all we saw on the small screen was “real,” life as it happened to them.
It’s probably safe to assume we can toss the latter out the window now. Does this not make you wonder how many other scenes from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo were faked / scripted for the cameras?
