Pumpkin Shannon Talks Quitting Reality TV Amid Mama June’s Health Crisis

Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon dropped a bombshell when she revealed that she and her younger sister Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson are ready to say goodbye to reality TV for good and start living normal lives.

After more than a decade of her family filming different reality shows, starting with Alana’s journey on “Toddlers & Tiaras” and now with their latest We TV offering, “Mama June: Road To Redemption,” Lauryn, 21, admitted in an exclusive interview with Entertainment Tonight Saturday that she’s already thinking of walking away from the cameras.

“Honestly, I want to go ahead and say goodbye if I'm being completely honest,” Lauryn said, before sharing that it’s quite hard to live a normal life when production on these shows is ongoing.

She also acknowledged the fact that they are mostly doing it just because Alana, who is now 15, grew up doing reality TV. Honey Boo Boo was only 6 when she was cast on “Toddlers & Tiaras” back in 2011.

Lauryn also admitted that she does enjoy the perks that come with this job, but her struggles off-cam cannot be denied. This is why she’s considering walking away from the spotlight and getting a job as a nurse.

“We have two days off a week and I can't get my life together in two days. I enjoy doing the show. I enjoy the income that it brings. I enjoy the lives that we impact. Ultimately, I want to go and be a nurse at a hospital. I want to go and make an impact in a hospital somewhere. TV is not something that I think any of us really want to do anymore, but we just keep pushing ourselves,” she said.

Lauryn went on to explain that even her younger sister desires to live a regular teenage life so as not to miss out on really important events. She noted that reality TV somehow “took away” her personal childhood, suggesting that she does not want the same thing to happen to Alana in the long run.

“I’m very grateful for the things that TV land has brought to us and been able to allow us to do, but it definitely is getting to the point where I think it's time for us to say goodbye,” she confessed.

Lauryn’s revelation comes a day after the latest episode of their current series, “Mama June: Road To Redemption,” aired. In the episode, she and her sister agreed to have a face-to-face reunion with their mom more than a year after the latter walked away from them to be with her boyfriend Geno Doak and satisfy her addiction to drugs. The episode ended just before the trio could reunite in one room.

In a recent interview with TooFab, Lauryn revealed her expectations for their reunion since Mama June Shannon, 41, has been claiming that she’s already 14 months sober after completing her rehab stint in early 2020.

“She's gotta prove a lot of things. She has to prove to me that she is truly sober. She has to prove to me that she's not the person that even she was before the addiction, the one who lied about the little things,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mama June recently made the shocking revelation that she only has six months to live if she were not to get treatment for her stage 3 lymphedema. The matriarch said her life-threatening condition is one of the reasons why she’s desperate to reconnect with her children.