Mama June and the sex offender: Pic shows him with Honey Boo Boo

Mama June’s mess involving convicted sex offender Mark McDaniel just won’t go away, with a new photo posted online over the weekend showing him in close contact with 9-year-old Alana Thompson, June’s youngest daughter and the headlining star of TLC’s now-canceled “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.”

McDaniel, 53, and June Shannon, a.k.a. “Mama June,” 35, are shown on a staircase with Honey Boo Boo between them in a Sept. 9 photo posted Saturday by TMZ. While the show’s matriarch poses for the camera, he has his hand on the youngster’s arm.

The staircase photo comes in the wake of images the website posted showing McDaniel and Shannon cozied up in a hotel room while hanging out with other people and Shannon touring a house with McDaniel’s son last month. Also posted: A pic of her at a car dealership, allegedly buying a sedan that was delivered to the address listed as McDaniel’s on Georgia’s sex-offender registry.

The two adults, who previously dated, have reportedly been seeing each other for months. The allegation of that relationship on Thursday resulted in TLC axing the show Friday despite, according to TMZ, having a season’s worth of footage in the can.

A spokeswoman for Georgia’s child-services agency told People on Monday that “generally speaking,” a report that children were living around a sex offender would merit investigation. Privacy laws, she said, prevented her from disclosing anything specific to the Honey Boo Boo situation.

In addition to Alana, teen daughters Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon and Jessica “Chubbs” Shannon currently live with Mama June.

Mama June posted a “truth video” Friday on Facebook denying that she had been dating McDaniel, saying she hadn’t seen him in 10 years and “would not ever, ever, ever, ever put my kids in danger.” She noted that the family’s social media presence would be quiet for a while because the network “has kind of told us to hush hush.”

Twenty-year-old Anna Marie Cardwell, Mama June’s eldest daughter and known as “Chickadee” on the show, gave permission Friday to Radar Online to reveal that she was the relative victimized at age 8 by McDaniel, who got out of a Georgia prison in May after serving a decade for aggravated child molestation.

Cardwell confirmed to People over the weekend that McDaniel would try to touch her “and all that stuff” when she was 8 and he was dating her mom. She said she was “confused” about recent events: “I’m hearing one story from Mama and another one from someone else,” Cardwell told the mag.

Prosecutors accused McDaniel of having her perform oral sex on him multiple times in 2002 and 2003, according to court papers obtained by Radar.

Shannon and Mike “Sugar Bear” Thompson, Honey Boo Boo’s father, separated in September.

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