A US mum and children’s beauty pageant organiser has criticised British girls for being plain and pasty – and says parents in the States aren't so afraid to let their children look 'sexy'.

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Jessica Darden, 24, has run pageants where girls as young as 4 wear fake tan, heavy make-up, painted nails, hair extensions and glam clothes – and her own daughter Sofia, 4, has appeared in a pageant wearing a leather-look catsuit.

Jessica, who moved from Louisiana to England last year thinks beauty pageants in a the UK aren't a patch in US ones. "In the US, girls strut down the catwalk and wiggle their bums," she said, according to The Sun. “ We aren't afraid to make them look older, and their outfits can be sexy and glamorous. The British kids all look plain and pasty. The American girls are more petite, sassy and diva-ish. Parents aren't afraid to make them look sexy.

“One of my daughter Sofia's most successful outfits was a tight, leather-look catsuit. She looked like a sexy little vixen prowling around the stage. She looked about 16. I loved that look.”

The mum-of-1 later appeared on This Morning andtold presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby she was ‘surprised’ at some the words The Sun quoted her as saying.

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“The article... was not as I thought it would be," she said. "I never said anything with the word sexy relating to children at all. I did say 'sassy'. Sassy is the attitude they portray.”

But Jessica stoutly defended her decision to put make-up on her 4-year-old daughter.

“Putting make-up on a child is not sexualising her," she said. "She’s not on a corner or pole-dancing. She is in a controlled environment on stage with her father and I right there. Regardless of what she is wearing, she is a 4-year-old.

“If someone is looking at my 4-year-old in a sexual manner, it is not her fault and it's not my fault; it is theirs.”

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