It’s incidents like these that make me overjoyed that my young daughter is still in love with Strawberry Shortcake, Hello Kitty, Elmo and Blues Clues… and that she has no clue who Hannah Montana is. (I’m hoping I can keep her in the dark for years to come.)
If you have a pint-sized Hannah Montana fan in your home then you might be familiar with the essay contest brouhaha that emerged when a 6-year-old girl and her mother went to extremes to secure four concert tickets to the tween sensation’s sold-out show.
The youngster’s essay began with the powerful line: “My daddy died this year in Iraq.” And continued with these other heart-wrenching words: “I am going to give mommy the Angel pendant that daddy put on mommy when she was having me. I had it in my jewelry box since that day. I love my mommy.”
Touching, huh?
Too bad not a single word of it is true.
That’s right; it turns out the entire essay was fabricated by the little girl’s mother who says she desperately wanted her daughter to win Club Libby Lu’s (a store that sells clothes and accessories to young girls) “Hannah Montana Rock Your Holidays Essay Contest.”
The grand prize was a Hannah Montana makeover at a Club Libby Lu store, tickets to Hannah Montana’s sold-out concert in Albany, New York, in January, airfare and accommodations to the show and a Hannah Montana gift bag.
Last Friday the 6-year-old Texas girl and her mother showed up at Club Libby Lu to claim the prize. The young contest winner got her makeover, which included a blonde Hannah Montana wig, as well the coveted Hannah Montana tickets… only she didn’t get to hold on to them for very long.
After the girl’s mother told company officials that her husband died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq a TV station did some research and discovered only one U.S. soldier died on April 17, 2007 and it was not the young contest winner’s father. Later the girl’s neighbors came forward and said the youngster’s father, a carpet cleaner, is alive and is not a soldier.
Once the ruse was up the girl’s mother justified her actions to the media.
“We did the essay and that’s what we did to win,” the girl’s mother, said in an interview with a Dallas TV station. “We did whatever we could do to win.”
The girl’s aunt added that the essay was intended to be a Christmas story.
“It was supposed to be told like a Christmas story, a good Christmas story, basically,” she said. “And that’s what she wrote, a Christmas story. But she didn’t know it had to be true or anything.”
The family’s deception cost them their prize package. Club Libby Lu officials said over the weekend they awarded the grand prize to another contest winner… reportedly one that didn’t have to falsify a family member’s death to win votes.
What do you make of the scandal?
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