After emerging as the breakout stars of TLC’s child beauty pageant chronicle “Toddlers and Tiaras,” “Mama” June Shannon and her young daughter, Alana Thompson, a.k.a. Honey Boo Boo, got their own situational reality series. “Here Comes Honey Boo” aired for four seasons across two calendar years on TLC and introduced viewers to Shannon’s extended family, including her older daughter, Anna Cardwell, usually referred to by the affectionate nickname “Chickadee.” TLC canceled “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” in 2014, following allegations that Shannon had entered into a romance with a man convicted of aggravated child molestation. It was later revealed that Cardwell was his victim.
In March 2023, Cardwell revealed that she’d received a diagnosis of adrenal carcinoma, a type of cancer that attacks the kidney-adjacent adrenal glands that control hormone regulation, per the Mayo Clinic. By the time doctors discovered the cancer, it had already spread into Cardwell’s kidney, liver, and lung. Less than eight months later, on December 9, 2023, Cardwell died. “She passed away in my home last night peacefully,” Shannon wrote on Instagram. Cardwell was 29.
