Mama June has defended her sixteen-year-old daughter, Alana Thompson, dating twenty-year-old Dralin Carswell.
Alana Thompson, best known as Honey Boo Boo, shot to fame when she was just 5-years-old.
Thompson, alongside her family, starred in the series, Toddlers & Tiaras.
Thompson and her mom, June Shannon, were an instant hit with viewers.
And as result, the family went on to have their own reality TV series, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, though it was later canceled due to controversy.
In 2018, Thompson went on to star in Dancing with the Stars: Juniors where she made it to the fourth week.
However, since then, Thompson has shied away from television shows and instead now keeps fans updated with her life on Instagram.
Including where she shared the news of her boyfriend…
Thompson, now sixteen, is currently dating Dralin Carswell, aged twenty.
And people aren’t happy about the age gap…
“20 year olds should not be dating high school students, regardless of what the law says,” one person wrote on Twitter.
“This child is with a 20 yo man???” said another.
Another tweeted: “So a 20-year-old has been dating a 16-year-old, who only turned 16 exactly one fucking month ago, for 6 months…”
“He’s too old for her what the hell!!!” someone else tweeted.
But despite other people’s problems with the age gap, Thompson’s mom, June Shannon, has come out to defend her daughter’s relationship.
Speaking with TooFab, Shannon said that people need to realize that Thompson has “grown up.”
When the outlet asked Shannon whether she had met Carswell, she confirmed that she had.
“Yes, I’ve met Dralin,” she said. “They’ve been together for over a year. People need to realize that she’s going to be 17 in August and that [Alana’s older sister] Pumpkin and Josh were the same age as they were.”
Shannon went on to say that Thompson is receiving a lot of “hate” about her relationship.
Shannon claimed it was because Thompson is in “an interracial relationship” and because “he is older.”
“She is getting a lot of hate because she’s in an interracial relationship, he is older, but at the end of the day, Alana’s not that 6-7-year-old child y’all fell in love with 11 years ago,” she told the outlet.
“Alana has grown up, she’s graduating high school next year, guys!”
What do you think about the age gap?