Honey Boo Boo’s glam makeover: Alana Thompson, now 15, on how she’s no longer that ‘boisterous’ reality TV child star
- Thompson rose to fame at age five on TLC’s beauty pageant series Toddlers & Tiaras in 2012, then got her own show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo
- She opened up to Teen Vogue about the pressures of childhood stardom and her rocky relationship with mum ‘Mama June’, arrested for drug possession in 2019
Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson is growing up, and she’s more than just her catchy moniker.
The former reality TV star first catapulted into fame at age five when starring in TLC’s beauty pageant series Toddlers & Tiaras in 2012. Later that year, Thompson landed her own reality show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, following her family around their hometown in Georgia.
Thompson, now 15, clarified she’s no longer that “boisterous little girl” seen on TV, but rather a real person, in a Teen Vogue interview published Wednesday, August 25.
“My mama did not name me Honey Boo Boo. My name is Alana,” Thompson said. “They are completely two different people.”
Though she was known for sassy catchphrases such as “Honey Boo Boo child” and “A dollar makes me holler, Honey Boo Boo,” she said those sayings don’t represent who she is today, yet continue to “stick around, because they were on national television”.
“I guess people still expect me to be little Honey Boo Boo, and I’m not any more,” Thompson said. “Just because I’m from the South, people expect me to be all country bumpkin, out riding four wheelers all the time, but that’s not really how it is.”