Anna Nicole Smith’s six-year-old daughter Danielynn made headlines yesterday when it was revealed she had made her modelling debut at the tender age of six.
Adding fuel to the critics’ fire was the fact that the little girl has signed with Guess, the same brand her tragic mother represented before her death from a drug overdose in 2007.
In pictures: Are these girls too young to model?
Now, Danielynn’s father Larry Birkhead has gone on US TV to defend his choice to allow the girl to model, claiming it is her way to be close to her late mum.
“Dannielynn has always looked up to her mom’s image and said that her mom’s an angel,” Larry told Good Morning America.
“I think that this is kind of Dannielynn’s way of paying tribute to her mom in her own special way.
“To see her mom’s picture next to hers as a Guess girl and say, ‘Hey, I was a Guess Kids girl and my mommy was a Guess girl,’ that might be her only connection with her mom.”
Despite supporting Danielynn’s current foray into the fashion world, Larry says he won’t be pushing her to make a career out of modelling.
“My goal for her is for her to be a child and just do what all kids do,” he said.
Related: Liz Hurley ‘sexualising kids’ with skimpy swimwear
Danielynn was five months old when her mother died. She was the subject of a bizarre custody dispute, with several men stepping forward claiming to be her father but a paternity test proved celebrity photographer Larry was her biological dad.
Your say: Would you let your six-year-old daughter be a model?
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