This story is just … icky …. from every angle. It’s a lot worse than that if Mama June has indeed been lying about her association with registered sex offender Mark McDaniel. TLC recently pulled the plug on Here Comes Honey Boo Boo in the wake of allegations that June might be dating Mark, who served prison time for aggravated child molestation of an 8-year-old girl. That now 20-year-old woman is none other than June’s eldest daughter, Anna Marie Cardwell, aka Chickadee.
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Anna is now speaking out herself, talking to People about the allegations that her mother is now dating her former molester. “I’m just confused,” Anna said. “I’m hearing one story from Mama and another one from someone else.” Mama June posted a Facebook video denying that she was dating Mark, saying, “I would not ever, ever, ever put my kids in danger. … I have not seen that person in 10 years.”
Anna repeated that her mother said the dating story is not true and she hasn’t seen Mark since he got out of jail. “My whole body believes that she is telling the truth,” she continued to People, “but my mind is going back and forth from – you know, hey, she’s telling the truth or she’s not telling the truth, but most of me believes her.”
Anna said, when she was a child, Mark “would try and touch me and all that stuff.” She said her mother didn’t initially believe her when she told her about the molestation, even asking why she, Anna, would do this to her, Mama June. “And I was like, ‘Mama, he did that to me and I can’t do anything about it. You were never there to see it you were always at work.”
Anna moved in with her grandmother after the molestation, People says, and only moved back in with her mother in 2012, not long before the TLC show premiered.
Anna said she would feel “hurt,” but not “betrayed” if her mother was indeed dating Mark. Anna has a 2-year-old daughter herself and said she would not let Mama June see her granddaughter unless Mark was out of the picture. In addition to Anna, Mama June is also mother to Alana/Honey Boo Boo, 9, Lauryn/Pumpkin, 14, and Jessica/Chubbs, 17.
TMZ released photos of Mark and Mama June hanging out together, which appear to contradict her story of not seeing him. According to TMZ, the network saw this as Mama June putting her children at risk, pushing TLC to cut ties with the family and pull the show from the lineup, despite having already shot a new season.
For his part, Mark McDaniel has not responded to various outlets’ requests for comment.
Our hearts go out to poor Anna in this difficult time. How horrible to have to relive all of this — and publicly. As she put it, “the past should be in the past and it should stay in the past and not come back out.”