Petra Ecclestone encourages daughter to participate in magnificence pageant

Petra Ecclestone has come underneath fireplace for encouraging her eldest daughter to participate in a magnificence pageant.

Lavinia, 11, made her debut within the Ideal Miss California & West Coast competitors final Sunday, with the blessing of her mom, daughter of Formula 1 billionaire Bernie Ecclestone.

Wearing a crown, a Disney princess-style ballgown, heels and a ‘Miss West Coast’ sash, Lavinia took a twirl on stage on the Downey Theatre in Los Angeles and posed for cameras and judges in full make-up.

Petra, 35, each inch the doting pageant guardian, declared herself ‘a really proud mummy’.

She wrote to her 77,000 Instagram followers: ‘I’m so privileged to be your mum, I’ll at all times cheer you on to observe your goals, by no means decide you and at all times love you.’

But judgment quickly got here, in droves. ‘This is insane, she is barely a toddler,’ responded one in all Petra’s followers. Another wrote: ‘Why would you do that to your youngster?’ Sam Palmer, Lavinia’s stepfather, fired again: ‘She wished to and we assist her. I suppose it is what being a guardian is all about.’

Petra Ecclestone (left) pictured together with her daughter Lavinia (proper) 

Lavinia, 11, made her debut within the Ideal Miss California & West Coast competitors final Sunday, with the blessing of her mom, daughter of Formula 1 billionaire Bernie Ecclestone

One follower even urged that magnificence pageants are a ‘paedo’s paradise’ and warned Petra to maintain Lavinia away.

The subsequent stage of the competitors can be held on the Beverly Hilton lodge in June. The Ideal Miss pageant prices £371 to enter and goals to ‘have a good time ladies by showcasing their strengths and maximising their potential to organize them for all times forward’.

But whereas defenders of the trade insist it instils younger ladies with confidence, critics argue that magnificence pageants are exploitative and implement the message that fairly seems are all-important.

Claude Knights, former director of child-protection charity Kidscape, says pageants ‘give younger ladies the sign that it is OK to worth your self alongside a selected, superficial dimension. It’s not about the entire individual.’

But Lavinia could be in search of to develop her confidence, after enduring a troublesome begin in life. She was identified, aged 20 months, with a speech-delay studying problem, and went on to turn into a non-verbal toddler, not talking till she was almost 4 years outdated.

She now not sees her father, James Stunt – a playboy businessman who will quickly go on trial, for the second time, on a money-laundering cost. When they had been married, James forbade Petra from placing herself, or their youngsters, on social media. But since remarrying two years in the past, Petra is again constructing a public profile.

She is now making ready to launch an internet pre-teen magnificence and style boutique named Crickle Daisy, with Lavinia because the face of the model.