“Just because I got a little bit of extra meat on my bones, you want to hate me? I’ll never get body shaming.”
While the world knows her as Honey Boo Boo, the reality star makes it pretty clear she no longer answers to that in real life in a new profile with Teen Vogue.
“My mama did not name me Honey Boo Boo. My name is Alana,” she told the publication in an interview tied to her upcoming 16th birthday on August 28. In the article, Thompson distances herself a bit from her past TV persona, while introducing the world to the new Alana.
Telling the publication catchphrases like “Go Go juice” were “definitely Honey Boo Boo days, for sure,” Thompson noted she doesn’t say them anymore … even if others do. “They still do stick around,” she said, “because they were on national television.”
“They are completely two different people,” she said of her past and present selves. “I would say that I do like this Alana now, rather than the younger Alana.”
Part of the teenager’s transformation was coming to terms with people’s preconceived notions about her and how it compares and contrasts with how she feels about herself at the end of the day.
“I guess people still expect me to be little Honey Boo Boo, and I’m not anymore,” she explained. “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. There are so many folks on my Instagram that do not like my nails or my eyelashes. But I do not care. As long as I like myself, I’m good.”
Thompson said she’s not modeling herself after anybody in particular, emphatically telling the magazine she doesn’t “ever want to be like nobody,” while adding, “I am my own person.” While her size has always been a talking point on her family’s reality shows and in some of the coverage of them, Thompson is happy in her own skin.
“I feel like my generation is probably making it worse. Everybody’s all about body positivity, body positivity, until they see a body they don’t like,” she said. “I don’t understand why people think this way. Just because I got a little bit of extra meat on my bones, you want to hate me? I’ll never get body shaming.”
“Like, I know I’m beautiful, and I know I got a banging body, so … I don’t care,” she said of the haters.
The interview also touched on her mother’s very public struggles with drug addiction, which has played out over “Mama June: From Not to Hot” over the past couple seasons. It got so bad, Alana had to move in with her sister, Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon, who is now her legal guardian.
“A lot of folks in this world do not realize how many people are actually really affected by drug and alcohol [use],” she told Teen Vogue. “It’s very, very hard. It’s something I’d wish on nobody, for real..”
“When my mama got real bad with her [drug use], I didn’t know where I was going to end up,” she added, saying she’s “proud of myself for how far I’ve come.”
Thompson told the publication she doesn’t have many close friends outside of her boyfriend, saying she has issues with trust. “I feel like folks are so much like, ‘Oh my God, I’m friends with Honey Boo Boo,” she explained. “I don’t trust nobody really, so I don’t have friends.”
While she is working to get things “back on track” with her mom, Thompson is also planning for her future. “I want to be the best I can be, and I want to make my money, and I also want to make straight A’s, so I just try my hardest,” she said, telling Teen Vogue she hopes to move out on her own at 18, buy a car and get a home for herself.
“I want to have a life, you know? I want to be able to support my kids when I do have kids and stuff like that,” she said of her family’s reality show future. “It’s definitely something that is good for the time being, [and] good for later on in life.”
“I don’t know what future Alana’s like. I haven’t met her yet,” she added.
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