Celebs who can’t stand Honey Boo Boo

Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson is a particularly divisive character in the world of reality television. Rosie O’Donnell loves the
Here Comes Honey Boo Boo star, calling her show “really revolutionary TV in a way most people won’t understand.” RuPaul claims she is his “reason for living” and wants to sing a duet with the pint-sized pageant princess. Even Barbara Walters dubbed her one of the most fascinating people of 2012, a stance she defended by saying “she’s sweet and loving with her mother and loving with her sisters.”
On the other side of the spectrum, there are plenty of famous folk who can’t stand the Georgia-born GIF generator. Ever since she sparkled and shined her way into the public’s consciousness in Season 5 of TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras in 2012, Honey Boo Boo has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way — on principal, if nothing else. Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine flies into a red rage at the mere mention of her name. Conan O’Brien strongly suspects Honey Boo Boo is responsible for China “kicking America’s a**.” Meanwhile, The Real Housewives of Atlanta ‘s Kenya Moore thinks Honey Boo Boo looks like a prostitute.
Wherever you stand on the great Honey Boo Boo divide, it’s time to “redneckognize” a simply fact: Some people wish she’d just go away. Let’s reheat last night’s ” sketti ,” hunker down, and deep-dive into this.
We’ll keep the big fenagly words to a minimum.
Adam Levine calls her ‘the decay of Western Civilization’
Let’s start with an easy one. Pop star Adam Levine, Mr. “This Love” himself, allegedly hates Honey Boo Boo with a fiery passion that verges on fanatical. In a 2012
GQ profile , the Voice judge went off on the former Toddlers & Tiaras tyke, and the result is a thing of beauty.
Asked whether he’d rather wake up “not famous” or wake up as one of Honey Boo Boo’s parents , Levine wastes no time completely wigging out: “Seriously, Honey Boo Boo is the DECAY of Western civilization,” he declared.
According to Levine, the fact that the show successfully gathered so many eyeballs “doesn’t mean it’s good.” In fact, he likened the Honey Boo Boo phenomenon to when “people witness atrocities and can’t take their eyes away from them.” And, just in case some readers still aren’t clear on where Levine stands on the issue, he emphasized that “that show is literally The. Worst. Thing. That’s. Ever. Happened.”
And he goes on. And on. And on. “It’s complete f***ing ignorance and the most despicable way to treat your kids. F**k those people.” Later, he apologized for all his frothy vitriol, saying, “I’m so sensitive to that. … it’s upsetting.” And then, just to clarify, he shouted: “F**K THOSE PEOPLE.”
Maybe he’s more of a Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon kinda guy.
Kris Jenner hates HBB and her little mother, too!
Did Kris Jenner try to turn the Kardashian clan against Honey Boo Boo’s family? That’s the story one rabble-rousing source told
Radar Online in 2012. The anonymous tattletale claimed Jenner really had it in for the beauty pageant contestant and Mama June Shannon. Reportedly, Jenner was angry because they were upstaging her own reality show calamity. “She thinks the Thompsons are classless, unlike her family, and can’t understand why America is so fascinated by them,” whispered the source. “The show has become bigger than Keeping up with the Kardashians, and Kris is starting to feel threatened by its success.”
But perhaps this story has a happy ending — which is exactly what we want from this situation, right? None too shadily, Jenner actually responded to the Radar Online story, claiming she wasn’t familiar with all the Honey Hoo-Hoo Whatchamacallit: “I would never criticize her, because I didn’t even really know who Honey Boo Boo is,” she told E! News in 2012, confessing that she strongly suspected Boo Boo was the name of a dog.
By 2013, Jenner had apparently done her homework and learned her Sugar Bears from her Chickadees. Commenting on the Thompson’s Halloween costumes that year — they’d all dressed up as the Kardashians — the “momager” did her best to be a good sport, tweeting , “‘So awesome honeybooboo mamajune_booboo you guys all looked fabulous! #Kardashianlove”
Well played? You decide.
PETA rep Michelle Cho doesn’t like her chicken names
Although we don’t imagine Honey Boo Boo has a walk-in closet brimming with ermine and mink, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) still did its homework and found something to scold the little girl for: the name of her plucky pet chicken, Nugget.
In 2012, Alana Thompson was just minding her own business when an ominous letter arrived from the animal activist organization. The screed urged Honey Boo Boo to “honor” her pet chicken “and protect other chickens just like her.” At the time, Thompson was just 7 years old.
According to E! News, the letter, written by PETA’s former Associate Director of Communications Michelle Cho, alerted Thompson that “chickens are smart, interesting animals with personalities of their own.” In no uncertain terms, the organization asked Thompson to change the name of her feathered friend at once — to “Not A Nugget.” To sweeten this non-deal, PETA even sent the former Toddlers & Tiaras star an “I Am Not a Nugget” T-shirt, plus a sampling of some juicy, protein-packed “faux-chicken tenders” by Gardein.
We’re not sure PETA’s swag bag did the trick. Two years later, Thompson told InTouch all the things she wanted to be when she grows up: “a mama, a beauty queen, working at Walmart [and] working at McDonald’s so I can eat their chicken nuggets.”
She makes no mention of wanting to be a brand ambassador or thought leader at Gardein.
Jimmy Fallon: ‘Never hit your mother!’
As far as bad behavior goes, striking your mom is right up there with carjacking and managing a puppy mill. Through the power of editing, home audiences were spared the sight of Honey Boo Boo getting physical with Mama June during a 2014 appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon . Unfortunately, the studio audience wasn’t quite so lucky. The unedited segment was allegedly such a disaster, writer Christy O’Shoney wrote a Salon story calling Honey Boo Boo a “tiny, dimpled monster.” (O’Shoney was in the audience because a friend happened to have a spare ticket.)
O’Shoney suggests the little girl was constantly having her lines fed to her by
Mama June and reportedly possessed none of the storied fizziness that’s turned her into a modern-day meme on legs. In fact, O’Shoney says the whole interview was fraught with an “eerie tension.” She also claims Honey Boo Boo was so annoyed at one point that she abruptly “struck” Mama June, much to the palpable dismay of the host. “Never hit your mother!” Fallon allegedly exclaimed, in an only-slightly-jokey tone. O’Shoney’s bottom line? She found Honey Boo Boo “disrespectful, defiant, entitled.”
In fact, Honey Boo Boo supposedly refused to give Fallon her friendship bracelet (on numerous occasions) and said his muscles weren’t that big. Maybe someone didn’t drink enough Go Go juice that day.
Kenya Moore thinks she looks like a ‘hooker’
Rule of thumb: It’s generally frowned upon to compare a 7-year-old girl to a prostitute. Nevertheless, no one seemed to bat an eye when The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kenya Moore came for Honey Boo Boo. In 2014, the former Miss USA told InTouch: “Her mother puts her onstage looking like a glorified hooker!” She also thinks that “Honey Boo Boo is not a role model for young women,” which, fair enough.
Thompson also has it in for Mama June. In fact, she doesn’t have many good things to say about pageant moms as a whole. According to Shannon, beauty contests are about so much more than grabbing a trophy. You have to demonstrate that you’re distractingly beautiful inside and out. “Pageants are about having poise and promoting self-esteem and self-worth,” she says. She doesn’t think Honey Boo Boo possesses any of these qualities: “When a little girl wears a lot of makeup, fake teeth, and extensions, like hookers do — that’s just not appropriate.”
Honey Boo Boo would probably respond to these accusations with one of her most famous epigrams: “Pretty comes in all sizes. My size is cute.”
Steve Harvey is gonna have to pass
Poor Steve Harvey. The self-professed King of Comedy probably thinks Honey Boo Boo is a multi-headed monster that occasionally shambles into his life to remind him that Chaos Reigns.
In 2013, the entire family managed to upend his interview while appearing on his talk show, Steve. In fact, all hell quite literally broke loose. As Shannon regaled Harvey with news that Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon “changes boyfriends like she changes underwear,” her equally craven sister, Anna “Chickadee” Cardwell, abruptly let one rip. Harvey’s face contorts into so many varied expressions of disgust that entire articles have been dedicated to dissecting the moment. “Honey Boo Boo meets Steve Harvey and we took over!” cried Mama Shannon, clearly pleased as punch. Meanwhile, Honey Boo Boo lay slug-like and squalid, sprawled on the sofa with limbs awry like an abandoned ventriloquist doll on a sugar low.
This shining beacon of Peak TV isn’t the only time Harvey has had to deal with the Honey Boo Boo crew. That same year, they all appeared on Family Feud, and that experience sounds equally off-putting. During a 2014 visit to The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (via Buzzfeed ), Harvey revealed that Pumpkin “shut the show down ’cause she had a request.” Apparently, she wouldn’t let the show go on until she had a big mouthful of yummy corn.
“Who the hell can’t go on without a bowl of corn?” he wondered, aghast. Then, to Fallon: “You don’t … you don’t know nobody like that.”
Harvey probably wishes he didn’t, either.
Conan O’Brien: She’s why China is kicking America’s a**
Et tu, O’Brien? Stars like The Bridge’s Diane Kruger and Pitch Perfect’s Rebel Wilson have both appeared on Conan to discuss their unhealthy obsession with Honey Boo Boo (“It’s like crack to me,” Kruger confessed.) Alas, so far no one’s successfully converted the talk show host into a fan. All in all, he doesn’t seem remotely smitten on the reality star, as you can tell from some of his material: “Sarah Palin visited the White House last night along with Ted Nugent and Kid Rock. All three expressed their regrets that Honey Boo Boo couldn’t make it.”
O’Brien takes it one step further in the above clip, suggesting the real reason China is “kicking America’s a**” is because everyone in the USA is sitting around watching Alana Thompson rock her daisy dukes .
And since three makes a trend, let’s not forget the time Conan’s crew superimposed Honey Boo Boo’s face onto Gollum from The Hobbit . Anybody who does that probably isn’t a big fan.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone can’t abide her
Even by South Park standards, the show’s depiction of Honey Boo Boo (in the show’s 232nd episode) is pretty damn vicious. It even inspired think pieces with headlines such as: “Honey Boo Boo on ‘South Park’: Are Reality Stars Parker and Stone’s Blind Spot?”
Titled “Raising the Bar,” the episode finds Cartman coming to terms with the fact that he’s obese. To combat the problem, he spends most of the episode riding around in a mobility scooter. Soon enough, famous folk such as Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson follow his lead. In a plot twist that’s perhaps not South Park’s most inspired moment, Cartman launches his own reality show called
Fatty Doo Doo. At one point, Cartman and Honey Boo Boo are pitted against one another in a wrestling match (that takes place in a pile of spaghetti, or “sketti,” as the case may be.) For some reason, this all goes down on the South Lawn of the White House.
Well, the Honey Boo Boo clan caught wind of the episode, and it didn’t exactly give it two thumbs up. (Or three, for that matter.) Mama June was asked by the TMZ minions what she thought of the spoof, and she responded, “Me being a big person, I didn’t take offense … That show is just not a show that I would want to be on in the first place.”
Her main complaint? Without putting too fine a point on it, Mama June ultimately thought the South Park episode was “kinda trashy.”
Larry the Cable Guy declared all-out redneck war
Things we’ve learned so far today: Not all rednecks are created equal — at least, not according to Larry the Cable Guy. Inexplicably swarmed by TMZ reporters in 2012 while hanging out in West Hollywood, the stand-up comedian insisted there’s a very distinct line in the sand that separates his kind of redneck from the Honey Boo Boo variety. Yes, apparently there’s a pecking order to these things.
“I’m a redneck,” he huffed. “I’m not a Honey Boo Boo redneck, I’m a Larry the Cable Guy redneck, there’s a big difference between the two rednecks.” He then attempts to break down all the numerous “stages” of redneckiness. Jeff Foxworthy is apparently the gold standard of redneck, while the likes of Honey Boo Boo are decidedly lower class. What’s the difference, exactly? According to Larry the Cable Guy, “The food’s not as greasy” when you’re in the upper echelons of redneckery.
This all echoes a sentiment he expressed in an interview with M Live in 2013: “Honey Boo Boo, in my opinion, is [a] bottom of the barrel redneck.” So there you have it.
Mickie Wood gives her a Bronx cheer
Mickie Wood isn’t necessarily the classiest of class acts. After all, she reportedly
responds to criticism by impersonating flatulence. Nevertheless, Radar Online claims the notorious mother of child pageant star Eden Wood finds Honey Boo Boo to be positively “vomit inducing.” Heather Ryan, Eden Wood’s former manager, wrote a gruesome e-book called Unleashing a Momster that chronicles all the child pageant melodrama that goes on behind the scenes. Turns out there’s a considerably lurid underbelly beneath all that sparkle and shine.
In a chapter entitled “The Honey Boo Boo Boom,” Ryan claims Honey Boo Boo represents everything Mickie “hated about herself” and “hated about ugly, overweight hillbillies.”
If the e-book is to be believed, Mickie would just sort-of sit around and be “disgusted” and “lament for hours about how vomit inducing the Shannon family was.” Allegedly, her jealousy went through the roof when Here Comes Honey Boo Boo premiered in 2012. Ryan writes: “I’m pretty sure I heard a loud, distinctive BOOM from Taylor, Arkansas as Mickie Wood’s head exploded.”
She may have just been blowing raspberries again.