Why Are A Bunch Of Child Beauty Pageant Contestants Dressing Up Like Rappers?

On an episode TLC reality series, Toddlers & Tiaras, the show profiled Hollywood Stars pageant circuit's Hip-Hop Pageant to rather suspect results. The show's highlighted pageant featured a variety of young children parading around on stage in various "hip-hop-inspired" costumes. Pageant director Jonel Stanek commented on the pageant's existence: "It's about the bling, the swag, being fierce, and being a diva."

Highlights of the show included children dressed up as Nicki Minaj, Jay Z and the Beastie Boys, an overweight man dressed in a cop costume stripping for a six-year old girl and another young girl brought to stage in a cage dressed as a cheetah. Speaking on her reasons for parading her daughter around in a cheetah suit at an ostensible hip-hop pageant, the mother offered this gem: "The cheetah comes from the African jungle, and hip-hop also came from Africa, so it's sort of the storytelling of the transition coming from Africa into the concrete jungle."

You can watch a clip of last night's hip-hop-themed Toddlers & Tiaras by clicking the link here.

[Via Gawker]