MAMA June’s daughter Lauryn “Pumpkin” Efird revealed she is ready to say goodbye to reality TV as it “took away from her childhood.”
The 21-year-old has been looking after her younger sister Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson while her famous mom continues to recover from her drug addiction.
Pumpkin sat-down for an interview with ET, and she touched on various personal topics including her feelings about her role on reality TV moving forward.
She said: “Honestly, I want to go ahead and say goodbye if I’m being completely honest. Only because Alana grew up doing this and you don’t really have a normal life during production.
“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.”
Pumpkin continued: “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.”
The mother of one added: “A lot of people don’t realize that. They’re like, ‘Oh, well the money’s nice. You won’t make that anywhere else.’
“That may be true, but I also can’t get back all the birthdays I’ve missed from [my husband] Josh’s family. I also can’t get back the family reunions, birthday parties, Christmases and things like that that I have missed.”
After spending 10 years on TV, Pumpkin also said she feels the shows she has been on “took away” from her childhood.
She said: “I do feel like it was so quick. I was 11, Alana was 6, and we’ve been doing it ever since then. And it’s frustrating.”
However, Pumpkin also called out the positive things TV has brought her life: “I also say ‘no,’ that it didn’t ruin our childhood, because we were able to do a lot more things than the average people that were our age.
“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.”
Pumpkin appeared on TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo from 2012 to 2017, and is currently on Mama June Road to Redemption.
She has been looking after Honey, 16, ever since her mom – real name June Shannon – started dealing with legal issues and drug problems.
June, 41, has had a rocky relationship with her daughters after she and her boyfriend Geno Doak were arrested on March 13, 2019 on drug possession charges, including possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia charges in Alabama.
On a recent episode of Mama June: Road to Redemption, Pumpkin refused to see her estranged mother if Geno would also be at the reunion.
June responded: “That’s f**ked up.”
Pumpkin – who exclusively told The Celeb Report she wants her mom to dump Geno – continued to bash him in a confessional.
She said: “I’m really starting to get fed up with Mama because she just expects that everyone is supposed to forget about the things that Geno done to her, to us, to us as a family in general.
“And I haven’t forgotten about those things at all… And I also have a responsibility for Alana.
“Like, I’m not gonna let someone come back in and basically break down everything that I helped her build back up.”
Previously, Pumpkin said she has refused to let her troubled mom know where she and sister Honey currently live.
