June "Mama June" Shannon and Alana "Honey Boo Boo" Thompson are the mother-daughter stars of TLC reality series Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, which follows the family's antics in their hometown of McIntyre, Georgia.
– If you watched Alana "Honey Boo Boo" Thompson on the Tonight Show last week, you saw what you've probably come to expect from her: a sassy little girl who refused to give Jimmy Fallon a friendship bracelet and showed off her cheerleading moves. But Christy O'Shoney attended the taping, and the parts of the interview that ended up on the cutting room floor reveal something far more disturbing: Alana has clearly had "a strange, tough childhood" that has left her "visibly troubled: disrespectful, defiant, entitled," O'Shoney writes on Salon. "Of course, with a bit of editing, 'disrespectful' becomes 'precocious,' 'defiant' becomes 'sassy,' and 'entitled' becomes 'confident.'" In real life, the friendship bracelet debacle went on forever and was "kind of agonizing," with Alana eventually becoming "openly hostile." There was also increasing tension between Alana and her mother, "Mama June"—and just before the cheerleading moment, that tension culminated with Alana hitting her mom. "NEVER hit your mother!" Fallon exclaimed. Yet Alana was essentially rewarded with pom-poms as the audience was forced to go along with her cheer. The same selective editing is likely happening on Alana's reality show—and because we see her as a "spunky little cherub," that's how she probably sees herself. But "from where I was sitting, Honey Boo Boo—let’s not mince words—was a tiny, dimpled monster," O'Shoney writes, and the world would be doing her a favor if we let her grow up offscreen. Click for the full column.