They may be country bumpkins, but the Thompson family (better known as Honey Boo Boo and Company) aren’t stupid when it comes to “the money and such.”
Well, actually, they kind of are.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the stars of the insanely popular TLC show are currently in talks with the network to do a second season. However, they must have realized that they are a hot commodity because they’re requesting a big raise– nearly double what they received for the first season! (“We be needin’ more money to buy them pigs feet and pixie sticks and what have you.”)
The problem? The big raise they’re asking for is only $10,000 an episode….for the whole family! The family is currently only receiving $4,000 an episode, which is chump change compared to what other reality stars receive.
That means TLC is currently getting all of this redneck goodness– including sassy Honey Boo Boo, the formerly pregnant teenage sister, the new baby, Papa Sugar Bear, the other two sisters, the obese hick wonder that is Mama June, and whatever other hillbilly creatures scurry into the episode– all for under $5,000?!
To put things in perspective, the cast of Jersey Shore each raked in a cool $10,000 per episode salary for the second season of the show. The Real Housewives of Atlanta stars reportedly earned $30,000 an episode each during their early seasons.
Here Comes Honey Boo Boo has become a massive hit for the network, with over 2.1 Americans tuning into the September 13 episode. (This is why the rest of the world hates us, people! We spend our time watching crap like this instead of doing productive things! Oh, that, and…we’re better than them.)
Anyway, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the network will likely counter the Thompson family’s salary request with the sum of $8,000 a week for the family. If they continue to do six episodes per season, that comes to only $48,000 for the entire family. While that’s likely a whole “lotta dough” where the family lives, it pales in comparison to other reality stars with hit shows.
Thompson family– go get yer’selves a fancy entertainment law-yer real damn quick!
(Photos: TLC)
First of all, it is not your place to make a decision regarding this family and their contract with the tv network. Implying that this family is “too stupid” to realize they are being exploited also implies that unintelligent-people-shouldn’t-be-allowed-to-make-their-own-decisions. You are being extremely condescending by insinuating that this family is not “smart enough” to think for itself or make its own decisions, and that the network is “swindling” them by filming them. June is an adult, the network is a corporation – and between them, they can make any legal contract under the sun. That is one of the most fundamental values of the constitution – personal freedom/liberty. You would do well to refrain from mocking the entire basis of that freedom by openly labeling someone else as “stupid”, and implying that they do not have the basic intelligence to make their own decisions.
In a completely separate line of thinking – why exactly do you say that the US is better than everyone else? Just out of curiosity – why are we better? What is the criteria you used? Because we’re richer? That’s an amusing syllogism. With that logic, Paris Hilton, as a person, is significantly better than you.
Anyone should have a lawyer, or at the very least an agent, when dealing with a huge multi-national entertainment corporation. It isn’t that june isn’t smart, she seems to have a great deal of native intelligence, and common sense, it’s that she’s out of her depth dealing with TLC, as most of us would be.
Oh, and Eden, your entire post was incredibly pompous and pretentious.