Honey Boo Boo is all grown up, however her checking account has shrunk. Throughout final week’s episode of Mama June: Family Crisis, Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson confronted her mom, Mama June Shannon, for draining the cash she earned as a baby star. It’s all introduced up labor legal guidelines from again within the Charlie Chaplin Days.
Now 18, Thompson had catapulted into early-reality TV fame again within the 2000s, as a breakout star from TLC present Toddlers and Tiaras. She revealed final yr to ET that she could be attending Regis College in Denver, Colorado after getting a $21,000 scholarship to pursue nursing. However nearly a yr in making an attempt to fund her future training, Thompson discovered her mom had allegedly siphoned a few of the cash she initially thought she may rely on.
“Why was my money even being used, or being touched,” Thompson questioned Shannon, referring to the cash she earned from Honey Boo Boo and Dancing with the Stars. “What the f*ck was you making a Coogan account for… I don’t have really the money for it,” she continued after discovering an account had much less cash than she thought it could. “To be honest, if you think about it, Mama, what the hell is $33,000?”
The disputed Coogan account stretches again to the age of silent appearing. The Coogan legislation is known as after Jackie Coogan, a baby actor who catapulted to fame after being found by Charlie Chaplin. Whereas he was the titular child within the film “The Kid,” Coogan’s stardom didn’t equate to monetary stability. In keeping with SAG-AFTRA, “it wasn’t until his 21st birthday after the death of his father and the dwindling of his film career that Jackie realized he was left with none of the earnings he had work so hard for as a child,” since state-wide legislation meant a minor’s earnings “belonged solely to the parent.”
After the previous little one actor sued, the Coogan Legislation was born in California, whereby 15% of a kid’s gross wages should be withheld by an employer and put right into a Coogan account. Related laws is required in New York, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, in accordance with Morgan Stanley.
State-law gaps go away sure little one actors in authorized quandary: Whereas Georgia—the state the place Thompson lives —doesn’t have these protections, youngsters who present companies inside stated states are coated.
And legal guidelines for little one entertainers haven’t caught as much as our present media panorama absolutely. As an illustration, little one influencers aren’t coated by the child-entertainer labor legal guidelines, per Morgan Stanley. The rising pattern of social media stars broadcasting each motion of their youngsters to hundreds of thousands of followers turns into a bit much less cute once you understand that the themes of the family-friendly content material aren’t legally protected. Since then, some little one influencers have grown up and opened up in regards to the work they put in. “I try not to be resentful but I kind of [am],” an nameless former-child influencer instructed Teen Vogue of being her household’s breadwinner.
In the meantime, a state-wide debate over child-labor legal guidelines is brewing within the background. Sharpening into a bigger problem, 28 states have launched laws that pokes holes in child-labor protections, in accordance with the think-tank Economic Policy Institute. There’s a pushback to this motion, although, as 14 states have launched counter payments to strengthen these child-labor legal guidelines.
“Child labor remains a key issue in state houses across the country in 2024,” Nina Mast, state financial analyst for EPI, instructed Fortune.
When Thompson’s mom pushed again to say that many don’t begin off at 18 with a lot cash to their title, Thompson countered that she’d earned that revenue. “I’ve been on TV since I was six, and now I barely have what to show for it, Mama,” she stated, taking Shannon to process for not even chipping in for even a semester of school.
Threatening to take her mom to court docket and floundering to pay for her training, Thompson challenged her mother for not pondering of her daughter’s future wants. Shannon admitted she pocketed 80% and left 20% for Alana, per People. In the meantime, Alana’s sister Lauryn “Pumpkin” Efird known as her mom “smart” for contributing “the bare minimum” to the account and did what was “legally right and then pocketed the rest, Lord knows what she did or where it went.”
