Be afraid: Honey Boo Boo, aka Alana Thompson, will become a fixture on UK screens when TLC launches in April (Picture: TLC)

She’s the pint-sized US reality star who has somehow become a household name across the Atlantic – and now Honey Boo Boo is on her way to a TV screen near you.

The seven-year-old’s show, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo – in which the not-at-all-precocious tyke appears alongside her equally endearing family – is one of a number of programmes set to screen on new channel TLC when it launches in the UK next month.

And it comes to British shores trailing a stream of criticism in its wake – although whether an audience raised on daily doses of the Jeremy Kyle show will find Honey Boo Boo’s exploits as controversial as US viewers remains to be seen.



The show, a spin-off from the reality series Toddlers and Tiaras, follows the seven-year-old – real name Alana Thompson – through life as a junior beauty pageant contestant as well as focusing on her day-to-day adventures in smalltown Georgia.


It was mauled by the critics in the US – with one describing it as ‘a horror story posing as a reality television programme’ – while others have accused the show of exploiting its star and attacked it for its grotesque portrayal of her family, including mother June Shannon, who has also become an unlikely celebrity.

Despite all this, it has proven popular with viewers, pulling in record ratings for the channel in the US.

The show is just one of several from the US channel which will be screened over here when TLC launches in the UK on April 30.

Other hit shows will include Breaking Amish – which follows a group of young people from the notoriously secretive community as they come face to face with the modern world – and Oprah Winfrey’s latest outing Oprah’s Next Chapter.

A number of UK-based programmes will also debut on the channel, including style show Ultimate Shopper, featuring Holly Valance, and Dawn Porter’s hidden camera effort Undercover Mums, which allows parents to spy on their teenage children.

TLC – aka The Learning Channel – originally launched in the US in 1972 with the intention of screening educational programming and documentaries. However in more recent years it has leaned more towards reality style programming and other types of lifestyle show.

It originally launched in the UK in 1994 but was subsequently rebranded as Discovery Home and Leisure and later Discovery Real Time.