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By Emily Strohm

and

Michelle Tauber

Published on November 10, 2014 12:00 PM

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People.com

HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOO

FAMILY IN CRISIS

First came the news that “Mama June” Shannon, the matriarch of TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo reality TV clan, was reportedly dating her ex-boyfriend, convicted sex offender Mark McDaniel. Then an even bigger bombshell: Shannon’s 20-year-old daughter Anna Marie “Chickadee” Cardwell stepped forward to say she had been McDaniel’s victim in a 2003 child molestation case. (He subsequently served 10 years in prison and was released in March; Shannon and her longtime boyfriend Mike “Sugar Bear” Thompson split in September.) Now the show is canceled, and Cardwell isn’t sure what to think. Of her mom’s repeated denials that she is again involved with McDaniel, “my whole body believes that she is telling the truth,” Cardwell tells PEOPLE, “but my mind is going back and forth.”

TMZ posted photos allegedly showing Shannon, 35, and McDaniel, 53, to- gether in recent weeks, including one snapshot that shows them alongside Shannon’s youngest daughter, 9-year-old Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson. “Mama says it wasn’t just her, Mark and Alana—there was other people in the house,” says Cardwell. “But she should have said to Mark, ‘You know you are not supposed to be around any minors.’ She should have said, ‘You need to leave.’ But she didn’t.”

The scandal prompted TLC to immediately pull the plug on the show, which had been a solid ratings hit for the network and made stars of Shannon and her four daughters. It also reopened a painful chapter for Cardwell, who recalls telling her mom about the abuse when she was just 8 years old. “A week or so after [the molestation] happened, I talked to Mama and she was upset, saying, ‘I don’t believe you, I don’t believe you,'” she says.”And I was like, ‘Mama, he did that to me.'”

Child-welfare authorities, meanwhile, will likely investigate. Typically, “when we receive a report that children are living around a sex offender… it would certainly rise to the level of concern of us looking into it,” says Susan Boatwright of Georgia Family and Child Services.

Shannon, who also has 14-year-old daughter Lauryn (“Pumpkin”) and 18-year-old Jessica (“Chubbs”), has gone silent since posting a “truth video” on Facebook on Oct. 24, thanking her “awesome fans.” (Neither she nor McDaniel responded to requests for comment on this story.) But for Cardwell, who is now married and mom to a 2-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn, the drama is far from over. If her mother is indeed dating McDaniel, “I would not let her see Kaitlyn unless Mark is out of the picture or away,” she says. “I don’t want him nowhere near my child. Nowhere near.”

GEORGE & AMAL

INSIDE THEIR POST-WEDDING PARTY

The celebration isn’t over yet: On Oct. 25 George and Amal Clooney continued their nuptial festivities in—as always—very posh fashion. The newlyweds and 200-plus guests gathered at the historic Danesfield House Hotel and Spa in Marlow-on-Thames, England, for a bash thrown by Amal’s parents, Baria and Ramzi Alamuddin. “George was absolutely adorable and went from table to table, meeting everyone,” a source tells PEOPLE, adding that Amal, 36, looked “incredible” in a gold Donna Karan dress. “They seem very much in love.” It was a family-and-friends affair. “There were no other famous people. It was 90 percent her family. It was a lovely celebration,” another source says. George, 53, joked to the crowd: “Being Irish, I’m used to large families, but this is the first time in my life I’ve seen a family as big as this one!”

BIG BREAKUPS

A SUPERSTAR ROMANCE COOLS DOWN—AND A CONTROVERSIAL BACHELOR GETS DUMPED

JENNIFER LAWRENCE & CHRIS MARTIN

Considering one is an Oscar winner starring in fall’s biggest film franchise and one is a Grammy winner who fronts one of the world’s biggest bands, Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Martin managed to keep their relationship surprisingly low-key. Now their breakup is following suit, with the pair quietly going their separate ways after first emerging as a couple in August. “Jen is the one who broke it off with Chris,” a source tells PEOPLE. The Hunger Games star, 24, and the Coldplay singer, 37, were “really having a great time” in the early stages of the romance, says an insider. Both stars were bouncing back from breakups: hers with her X-Men costar Nicholas Hoult, 24, and his with wife Gwyneth Paltrow, 42, with whom he has kids Apple, 10, and Moses, 8. Friendly exes and co-parents, Martin and Paltrow have maintained a close relationship. “It is hard for Jennifer to understand the feelings between Chris and Gwyneth,” says the insider. Might Lawrence and Martin get back together at some point? “Everyone jumped the gun with this romance,” says the insider. “It’s too early to know what will develop.”

NIKKI FERRELL & JUAN PABLO GALAVIS

File under “news that will surprise no one.” Eight months after horrified Bachelor fans watched as Juan Pablo Galavis, 33, refused to propose—or even say “I love you”—to his final pick on the ABC hit show, sources confirm to People that he and pediatric nurse Nikki Ferrell, 28, have split. “She is tired of his emotional distance and his womanizing and his disregard for her feelings,” says a source close to the couple. But while Ferrell pulled the final plug, the insider adds, Galavis “was also getting tired of her childish antics.” The two (who are starring in the current season of VH1’s Couples Therapy) declined to comment on the breakup, but Ferrell did post on Instagram on Oct. 26: “Isn’t it pathetic how we waste so much time on certain people.” In the end, says the source, “she finally decided that she didn’t want to keep up the facade anymore.”

Renée Zellweger

‘I AM DIFFERENT. I’M HAPPY’

EXCLUSIVE People EXCLUSIVE

All eyes were on Renée Zellweger at the Elle Women in Hollywood gala on Oct. 20 in L.A. Though famously shy, the actress proudly hit the red carpet hand in hand with her boyfriend, musician Doyle Bramhall II—and set off a commotion about her new look that exploded from Twitter to The New York Times. “Some people almost didn’t recognize her,” says a guest at the gala. Zellweger, 45, responded in an exclusive statement to People: “I’m glad folks think I look different. I’m living a different, happy, more fulfilling life,” she said. “My friends say that I look peaceful.”

The 2004 Oscar winner revealed she’s found balance after a period of “bad choices” and exhaustion: “I am healthy. For a long time I wasn’t doing such a good job with that.” Those close to her credit much of her newfound Zen to her two-year relationship with Bramhall, 45, a blues and rock guitarist from Austin, Texas. After her headline-making whirlwind marriage to Kenny Chesney and romances with Bradley Cooper and Jack White, Zellweger savors their lower-profile life in L.A. “Renée is so happy with Doyle,” says a source close to her. “That’s really the focus of her life now.” Adds another source: “She always wanted to be someone else. Now she feels more secure.”

Zellweger says she has been “loving someone, learning new things, growing as a creative person and finally growing into myself.” Says an insider: “She wants to be married. Family gives her strength and confidence. She believes in love.”

Now shooting a new film, Same Kind of Different as Me, in Jackson, Miss., Zellweger is focused on her future. “Perhaps I look different,” she told PEOPLE. “But I am different. I’m happy.”

‘People don’t know me in my 40s. People don’t know me [as] healthy for a while’

SOPHIA LOREN

About That Photo

Screen legend Sophia Loren, 80, has finally opened up about the infamous 1957 photograph of her giving an epic side-eye to Jayne Mansfield—and her ample charms—during a cocktail party at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “Look at the picture. Where are my eyes? I’m staring at her nipples because I am afraid they are about to come onto my plate,” the actress told PEOPLE’s sister publication ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY in the Nov. 7 issue. “In my face you can see the fear. I’m so frightened that everything in her dress is going to blow—BOOM!— and spill all over the table.” Now that would have been a photo-bomb for the ages! Loren’s new memoir Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: My Life hits stores Nov. 4.

DOUBLE TALK

with LISA KUDROW & DAN BUCATINSKY

THE LONGTIME FRIENDS MIX BUSINESS AND FRIENDSHIP ON HBO’S THE COMEBACK

How long did you two know each other before deciding to start a production company, Is or Isn’t Entertainment?

Lisa Kudrow: We met [in 1997] on the set of The Opposite of Sex, which was written by Don Roos….

Dan Bucatinsky: …who was my then-boyfriend …

LK: … now husband. And it turned out that Dan had been at Vassar when I was there …

DB: … but we didn’t know each other! We’ve gone through a million “Were you there when … ”

And you became instant friends?

DB: Lisa would invite Don and me to her dressing room on taping nights of Friends. We saw very little of the show, but we would hang out with Lisa’s husband, Michel. It was a Friday-night tradition.

LK: Around 2003 it felt like Friends was going to wrap up. I thought I should learn to produce and wanted to work with Dan.

DB: We’d do meetings in her dressing room!

How do you manage your acting careers along with producing Web Therapy on Showtime, Who Do You Think You Are? on TLC and the new season of The Comeback (premiering Nov. 9)?

LK: We’re slow and steady—well, I am….

DB: We balance each other out. Lisa likes to focus on one thing….

LK: … and he’s a multitasker. We call him Dan “Double-Book”-atinsky.

A lot of people would be afraid to go into business with their good friend.

DB: It could have gone horribly wrong. But I think there’s something to be said for a working relationship that is grounded in two people who enjoy spending time together.

LK: Also, neither of us likes confrontation.

DB: That’s true! I’ve repressed every drop of hostility I’ve ever had, and Lisa has done the same. [Both laugh]

Updated by

Jeff Nelson,