Mama June; Anna Cardwell (inset)
Pacific Coast News; INF
10/25/2014 AT 03:05 PM EDT
Cardwell, now 20, gave permission to Radar Online to reveal that she was the victim of registered sex offender Mark McDaniel, who was dating her mother, June Shannon, at the time.
“I believe she is seeing him and hanging around him,” Cardwell says of her mother’s current status with McDaniel.
On Friday, TLC dropped the reality show after TMZ posted photos that showed Shannon with McDaniel, who was released from a Georgia prison in March after serving a 10-year sentence for aggravated child molestation, according to records.
Shannon, 35, took to Facebook and denied the allegations she was dating McDaniel. “It isn’t true i promise,” she wrote. “My kids r #1 priority over anything else and I would never put them in danger period over this or anything else they r my life this is my past I left him 10 yrs ago for it and I wouldn’t go back.”
But a source tells PEOPLE that Cardwell is stunned by the current revelations and wants people to know that she was, indeed, the victim.
“Anna is beyond hurt by her mother’s behavior,” says a source close to the network.
Another source tells PEOPLE that Cardwell moved out of her mother’s home after she was molested. In 2012, Cardwell told PEOPLE that she moved back in shortly before the show’s premiere.
“I’ve always lived with my grandma,” she said at the time. “I just moved back here a few months ago. I lived in Griffin all my life.”
Earlier this week, Cardwell turned to her own Facebook page and wrote that she is telling the truth. But on Friday, it became clear that she needed a break from the recent dustup.
“Can everyone just leave me alone for a few,” she writes. “thank y’all for your concerns.”
• Reporting by KATE COYNE and MICHELLE TAUBER
