Convicted Felon Father to Toddlers & Tiaras Mom: You're Not a Good Parent
It's a case of the pot calling the kettle a bad parent: Lindsay Jackson, who is best known for appearing alongside her daughter Maddy on the controversial TLC show Toddlers & Tiaras, has been accused of exploitation by the little girl's father.
Maddy's dad, Bill Verst, is one to talk: The convicted felon is currently on probation for DUI and child endangerment.
"Maddy has been doing pageants since she was a baby and this is the first time Bill has ever said I'm a bad mother," Jackson told RadarOnline. "He never made an argument about it until the show aired and now he's trying to say that she's sexualized and that I'm trying to exploit her and I'm not!"
Maddy and her mom made headlines last year when the then-four-year-old was dressed up as Dolly Parton, complete with "fake boobs and butt," for a a beauty pageant's costume portion.
Jackson insists she's doing nothing wrong, because the toddler pageants aren't illegal. "It is my right to put my child in pageants, it is just like any other extracurricular activity like soccer or gymnastics or football," she said.
Despite her ex-husband's criminal past and present, Jackson is concerned that he could still be granted custody of Maddy when the two appear before a judge this afternoon.
She says the Verst family is "very well-known" in their "very, very small" Kentucky town, and "very involved in the court system."
"If (the judge decides) that Maddy needs to live with her dad because she does pageants with me, then that opens the door for any parent to challenge anybody on activity that a kid does, period," Jackson told Fox News. "What if years ago Gabby Douglas' father said, ‘She's not going to be a gymnast. She's not going to move away from home and practice gymnastics because I won't allow it,' and he and Gabby's mother got into a fight? We wouldn't have gold medal winners, we wouldn't have Miss America, we wouldn't have Miss USA."
