INSIDE EDITION speaks to Lindsay Jackson, who dressed her daughter up as Dolly Parton, complete with a padded bosom and bottom, for a pageant that was featured on the reality show Toddlers & Tiaras.
It's just a costume! That's what the embattled mom at the center of the Toddlers & Tiaras controversy is saying today.
"So what if she's doing this, and it's like a dress up, it's like Halloween for her!" says Lindsay Jackson.
Jackson is under fire for dressing her 4-year-old daughter Maddy up as Dolly Parton for a kid beauty pageant, complete with fake boobs and a fake butt!
"When she wears the fake boobs and the fake butt it's just like, it's an added extra bonus," Jackson says.
Since the episode aired earlier this week, viewers have flooded the show's Facebook page:
"Isn't this child pornography or something?"
"Absolutely disgraceful, let children be children!"
Some are even calling for the show to be cancelled!
"Take "Toddlers And Tiaras" off the Air!"
But others see the Dolly Parton routine as harmless playtime.
"I think maddy was too cute! It's dress up that's all it is. It's not like her mom has her dress up like that every day."
"You've got the fake boobs and the fake butt on a four-year-old. It just doesn't seem appropriate," INSIDE EDITION's Les Trent told Jackson.
"That's part of who Dolly is and if you take those away I don't know that you would know she was Dolly unless we walked around and said, 'We're Dolly,' " Jackson responded. "I would have critics whether I put her in Madonna's coned bra, if I put her in Lady Gaga's outfit."
During our interview, Maddy goofed around just like any kid her age. She seemed unaware of the controversy her costume is sparking.
Jackson asked her daughter, "What did you think about playing Dolly, was it fun?"
Maddy nodded yes.
"What was your favorite part of it?" Jackson asked.
"The pink and the rhinestones," said Maddy.
But in a scene from Toddlers & Tiaras, when another young girl asks her about her about the fake boobs, Maddy got embarrassed and quickly covered herself up.
Psychologist Wendy Walsh was horrified by what she saw: "This is not ridiculous, this is criminal, this is insane. Sexualizing young, mere babies, three- and four-year-olds, feeding this to their brains as a role model or an ideal is actual abuse."
"Aren't you concerned about your daughter maybe growing up too fast and being exposed to that?" Trent asked Jackson.
"In my mind she's not growing up too fast, like I said, the blurbs that you see on TV and of Maddy at all are for five or ten minutes of Maddy on the show. They don't show you her at home running around playing with her dolls," Jackson says. "You dress up, you put on the clothes, you take them off, and she becomes that same old kid."
TLC had no comment about the controversy.
