We posted a video yesterday of 3-year-old Paisley competing in a beauty pageant wearing a costume meant to make her look like Julia Roberts’ character Vivian Wade from Pretty Woman (while she was still a prostitute). The clip has gone viral and elicited thousands of appalled and outraged comments from viewers.

Little Paisley’s mother, Wendy Dickey, tells TMZ that her daughter had no idea who she was dressed as, and that it was “less revealing than gymnastics wear and swimsuits.” She goes goes on to point out that her daughter later wore a costume resembling the “classy” Vivian Wade (post-transformation), but that TLC edited out that footage. Here she is as the transformed Vivian:

“I’m raising my child just as well as any mother does … I take my kid to church every week … at least I’m not forcing them into sports and getting my child injured like some parents.”

Wendy adds, “People need to look at their own family and what they’re doing. I don’t know why people are focusing so much on pageant moms when there’s much more harmful things people are letting their children do!”

So what do you think? Are people over-reacting to a 3-year-old girl being dressed for a beauty pageant as a prostitute from a famous movie? (Personally, I would say it is at least worse than letting your kids play sports.)

Vivian Wade would respond, but she appears to be too distracted by the contents of a hotel mini-fridge:

UPDATE - Wendy Dickey has since spoken with Entertainment Weekly as well, telling the site:

“Well, at this pageant there was an option to do celebrity-wear,” Dickey says. “And we thought about what we could wear with her being a brunette and Julia Roberts is my favorite actress of all time. I thought it was real cute to do Julia. She’s 3, if she was 10 I never would have considered this. But as young as she is I thought it was very comical.”

Dickey points out again that TLC cut the footage of Paisley wearing the post-transformation Pretty Woman costume later in the pageant and claims that there wouldn’t have been nearly as much outrage if they had included that footage.

“I’m amazed it’s caused this much of a frenzy,” Dickey says. “The judges loved it. Everybody except one particular mom went nuts over it. It was the cutest thing ever. It was very innocent. A lot probably would have been different if they aired the whole entire routine instead of just the hooker part.”

I’m sorry, but nothing involving a three-year-old girl that has a “hooker part” is innocent.

Photos: TLC / SplashNews

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