This is kind of sad to me. I’m not making fun of this little girl, who is just a product of her circumstances. I’m pointing a finger at her mom and dad, who have pimped her out at the expense of her childhood. Eden Wood, 7, is the breakout “star” of that Toddlers & Tiaras show which may have intended to expose kiddie pageants at some point but just manages to encourage them. As we heard earlier this week, Eden has retired from child beauty pageants and is now starring in her own show on The Logo channel called “Eden’s World.” It’s centered around Eden and her mom coaching other little girls who want to succeed in pageantry. As we also heard earlier this week, little Eden had a bit of an attitude on The Wendy Williams show. I found her behavior very rude. I’m a mom to a seven year old, and I encourage my son to have manners and be thankful. I also try to make sure he spends time with his friends. Eden’s parents, not so much.
In a new interview in In Touch, this little girl couldn’t even name two girlfriends. This also makes me realize the obvious fact that Eden is being home “schooled” and isn’t socializing with other little kids. (Not that most homeschoolers lack socialization or friends in any way, just that it seems to make this already bad situation worse, given what we know about it.) Here’s some of her interview, thanks to Jezebel:
On her career
“I thought it was time to move on. I want to mix it up, keep doin’ different things. I want to have my own brand of clothes. I want to be a singer, a movie star, and a pop star.”On her new show mentoring kid beauty contestants
“I help kids a lot. I’m tough on them sometimes.”On if she’s met any famous stars
“I think I saw Justin Bieber in New York, but I don’t like him. Because he’s gross.”On if she has friends her age and what they like to do
“Play in the mud! I have girlfriends. One is named Abby, and I can’t remember the other one’s name.”
[In Touch, print edition, April 30, 2012 via Jezebel]
Kaiser and I were talking about this, and she has reservations about us giving these people any publicity, which I totally get. It’s just a despicable situation all around. But I believe people should point it out. This is a child who doesn’t have a childhood. Sure she has people fawning all over her and she has her own show and ambitions, but where will that get her eventually, when she’s old enough to understand what happened? Shouldn’t there be stronger laws against this? I mean, we were all concerned for the Gosselin kids and their lives under the TV microscope were so much more “normal” than this.
Here’s a link to Jezebel’s scan of this article, featuring Eden made up to look like career Barbie. She looks like a sweet little kid there without all the makeup and hair.
Eden is shown on 4-5 and 4-13-12. Credit: FameFlynet, Inc.
And a lot of people concern about Jolie-pitt kids
Ill take a daughter who likes to dress up over junk food eating, knive & gun playing kids anyday.
You’d rather send your kid out with hooker makeup than a hot dog?
Nice.
@Zelda š
You’d rather buy tabloids writing something about someone over tabloids writing about an interview someone gave?
Gee I wonder which one is true.
This is not comparable to a healthy child who chooses to “dress up”. This little girl is being groomed to fill the void in the pathologic mother who is vicariously living through her.
If there isn’t a law against this exploitation of children, there should be.
Obviously Eden is not denied junk food. But what concerns me is she is almost 7 and does not know how to read. That is all her parents fault. I do not think Eden has the talent or looks to ever be the star Mickie wants. She is just a chubby 7 year old who has not been taught respect or even the basics of reading. It is sad to see a child this young (or any age) that is as rude as she is and her mom thinks she is fuuny. It is not funny or cute. And if her mom or dad or someone does not start taking her education more serious, they are settin her up to fail. And that is the fault of the adults in her life putting their hopes for money that will never come above a child’s well being
Both comments are asinine, IMO.
@ fair and balance: People aren’t actually worried about the Brangelina kids. They just pretend to be concerned because they are jealous of Brange. They need to find fault with SOMETHING in that seemingly perfect existence, so they like to imagine that Brange are terrible parents.
I predict that in a few years when they become adults, there will be reality show featuring this kid, Honey Boo Boo Child, and the rest of these freaks beating the crap out of each other for a few more minutes of fame.
Yeah that show already airs…it’s called Teen Mom š
Yikesss!
They’ll be on some show featuring an intervention of some sort.
Honey Boo Boo has at least show she can write unlike Eden who can’t read at the same age.
She’s well on her way to Lilo-style entitlement and spoiled lifestyle. Sad. Mother is looking worse and worse. Isn’t this the kid that sings her little rap song “cutie patootie” that has a line about “checking my booty”? Pandering to pedos.
These stories always make me want to give my mom a hug for not doing this kind of stuff to me. Yay for good moms!
Yeah, what is all this doing to her soul? I mean being confronted with the pressure of good-looking, being thin and stuff at such a young age is definitly dangerous.
The sad part is, she’s really helpless. Her parents do this to her and she has no chance to escape from them.
She’s like a little Anna Nicole Smith… poor soul…
My reaction too. Anna Nicole Smith Mini-me.
She looks like a 35 year old midget.
SMH…
I know what you mean — all these tarted-up little girls look like baby-sized middle-aged women. The beauty aesthetic (if you can bring yourself to call it that) for these pageants is really dated and weird-looking. No little girls try to look anything like this in any other context.
It makes me feel uncomfortable. All I can see is JonBenet. Creepy. Some people will never learn.
I agree, Rita. Very Jon Benet and look what happened to her. Hopefully, when these girls are older they will legally emancipate themselves from their parents and get to keep some dignity for themselves. I highly doubt her mother is saving all of the $ her daughter makes either. These pageant kids need help.
I doubt that there is any money to save. Eden’s “fame” has cost her parents a lot of money. Pageants are not really even a break-even proposition for someone like Eden. Her mom is trying to make money being a pageant predator (milking other wannabe pageant queens’ parents) but any money made is probably being plowed right back into other predators convincing her that Eden is a “star”. Since the unfortunate child shows no signs of present or future star appeal – it’s unlikely that the money for other activities is flowing toward Eden & Co. They are very likely still paying out more than they can bring in.
I have never, ever watched the Toddlers & Tiaras show and the most I know about it is what I read in People sometime last year.
I saw this little girl on a clip that came my way a couple of days ago and I have to say, she seemed either totally obnoxious or high. I know she is only 7 and I feel terrible even saying that but my first thought is what an obnoxious little brat, then I wondered if perhaps she was handicapped and then I even went as far as wondering if she was drugged.
I can’t even tell you how many different ways of wrong this is. If she’s 7 and acting like this, what is she going to be like at 10?
I’m in the same position. Anything I know of this show comes to me via Joel McHale. I saw that clip of her on Wendy Williams a couple of days ago, and my eyes rolled so hard they could’ve snapped free from the optic nerve. BLECH on everything.
I’m another who’s never seen the show. But a couple of years ago I was sick in bed, and some channel was running a “Little Miss Perfect” marathon, so I just let the show run. I don’t know how the two shows compare, but I got the impression from LMP that most of the girls would rather be doing anything else but beauty pageants.
Happy21, I laughed so hard at your comment. Thank you for making my day!
Ok, as much as I hate to admit it I do watch Toddlers and Tiaras…as a comedy…which they clearly promote it as for most people intelligent enough to realize that. Ok, so maybe I am not setting myself up to look like the most intelligent person by watching it but it is mindless entertainment. Now, this being said I think a lot of these girls are being set up to be spoiled brats and difficult to deal with for the rest of their lives. Oh well. I do love her comment when calling Justin Bieber gross.
I agre with all of that. I watch it sometimes, and laugh. There is the odd kid who is really sweet and relatively grounded, though. That honey booboo child and her mother made me want to puke though.
Ahh, those two!! I watch it, too. There is some guilt attached because I hate giving them any kind of viewership or ratings, but it’s so outrageous at times. Same with Dance Moms.
Nah, I’ve never been a fan of the, ‘you watch this, therefore you’re functionally illiterate and here’s a list of all of your other ‘crimes’ that I’ve decided you regularly commit based on no evidence at all.’
To me, that says a lot more about the commenter than the viewer.
I think she may really be kept away from other kids. I recall some show or maybe a recap that mentioned (back when she was much younger) that she was just staying with her mom and not playing with the other girls at the pageants. Her mother seems so pathologically focused on her, she may very well only be around adults on a regular basis. She certainly doesn’t talk like a child but doesn’t show any intellectual precociousness that would explain it. Was just watching a tv ad for a collection of Shirley Temple’s movies – she was popular because she looked and acted like a kid, despite the terminal cuteness (and no, those curls weren’t natural…). Poor Eden is a trained monkey, groomed by her mom to look and act like a miniature (and very sexualized) adult. She won’t have any “career” outside the weird world of glam pageants. The bits and pieces I’ve seen of other pageant girls are significantly different – despite the oddness of the whole idea, the kids do come across as real kids buried under all the fake hair, fake tans, fake teeth, and makeup. Eden really has had her childhood stolen by both parents in a very real way. The problem isn’t actually the pageants, abominable though they are. The problem is her mother, and her enabling father. Her mom would have found some other way to isolate and warp her little dressup doll if pageants didn’t exist.
Shirley Temple’s curls weren’t “real” in the sense that she had straight hair, not curly, but they were a damned sight more natural than the extensions these little pageant kiddos wear!
Very true. But aren’t those extensions damaging? I had though the kids were wearing full or partial wigs. Of course, I imagine 1930s curling irons weren’t the greatest things for kiddie hair either…
Great assessment of a terrible situation
She is 7 people! Do 7 year old have multiple friends & know all their names? None that I know do.
People should be more concerned with Suri (who by the way also wears heels, frilly dresses and make up) being raised in a cult than a little girl who likes to dress up – like every little girl I know.
My five-years old daughter could certainly tell you the name of at least 5 of her best friends. Of course, she goes to school and lives like a little girl, not like a circus freak
At 7 I had my school friends, and yes I remembered their names. I also had friends with whom I used play, which were differents because they lived near Grandma’s house, oh and I used to remember even the neighboor’s kids name, because I used to play with them too. I’ve always been normal. My little nephew, who is five, can remember the names of her dearest little friends.
There were, like, 30 kids in my class when I was seven. I also had kids I played with who lived on my street. I had a freaking pen pal.
I knew the names of all of them.
Seven year olds are not 3 year olds. They are extremely functional human beings, and already at an age where they can begin to fashion abstract thoughts. So yeah, I’d be worried about one that can’t name two people she comes into contact with regularly.
I’m actually betting it’s because there AREN’T two, and she knows that’s embarassing. (Yes, 7-year-olds have the mental capacity for self-consciousness, too!)
Yes, seven year olds do have more than one friend and yes, they are quite capable of remembering the names of other kids they’re routinely around. I’m quite sure that at her age, I could have told you the names of everybody in my first grade or second grade class plus the names of all the kids in the neighborhood. Eden just doesn’t know other kids. My bet is that she doesn’t even go to classes for the singing, dancing stuff but rather teachers are hired to come to her house (so she doesn’t have to share their attention) and her mom is most likely the one homeschooling her. Her mother wants to control her completely. Other kids are potential or actual competitors.
Um, yes. She’s 7, not 2. By 7 years old, kids play and socialize with other kids, and can name their friends. No one is asking her to list 50 people, but she sounds like she only interacts with two little girls her age and seldom enough that she doesn’t even know one of their names.
Also, why bring up Suri? Another kid having problems doesn’t magically mean this one doesn’t. Her childhood is really sad and it’s not her fault, but it’s real and concerning and I wish there were someone in her life that could intervene for her sake.
Oh, that is not a permanent situation by any means. It’s been almost 7 years since Katie and Tom got together, so she’s pretty close to the end of her standard issue, ‘Mrs. Cruise’, ‘just a hair under 10-years’ marriage. The moment this contract expires, like most people suspect, she will pack the kid up and move out, get back close to her parents, family and ‘old faith’.
Suri may have a weird life, with parents who are all out for themselves and would pimp her out, since she was a few days old, to the papps for attention, but still I think she is relatively happy and normal. Couple more years, the ‘marriage’ will be over, and most of her life will return to the normalcy she can’t even remember. She will probably be very unhappy THEN, at least for a while, but kids are extremely resilient and she’ll eventually be OK.
This brat, Eden, is a different story.
I woder what type of person it takes to be watching a crime story about JonBenet, see her is all her warped glory, and say ‘that’s what I want for my kid’. What kind of mother sees such story, and her only take away is ‘I want my kid to look this way’???
Judging by the number and tone of comments here, people loathe the kid, the mother, and the show. Same with ‘Dance Moms’. When has it become acceptable ENTERTAINMENT to watch our kids get all f-ed up on TV; watch their lives being turned into a spectacle; watch their bodies and personalities being groomed, twisted and prodded into some unachievable, unsustainable ideal; watch their future being flushed down the drain?
It seems that most people are reasonable about this, and can totally see the dangers and the sad future coming in a hurry for these kids. So why are they getting more popular, with higher viewership, than ever?
Isn’t it time we all said ENOUGH? The civilization, the peoples who use their young as entertainment, who watch the death of childhood and destruction of anything that is human in them as entertainment – that is the modern tragedy. Too bad that most people are so dumb nowadays that even if they see a cautionary tale, they still draw wrong lessons from it.
We are not Afghanistan, not Somalia, not some Amazon bushmen tribe. We are the USA. We used to be the shining beacon for other peoples to aspire to. This is hastening out spiritual death, and demise of our ideals, and nobody seems too worried about it. That’s why there is so much mindless tripe on TV, in magazines, on the web. If we stop watching, maybe they will go f-ing back home!
I have never seen the show so I’m clueless. To me, it reads like someone forgot to cast Friend #2 for the the requisite “normal life” portion of the interview. Like that kid really plays in mud….
Oh yes, a 7 year old can have tons of friends and remember their names…come to our house when it’s time to plan a birthday party for my oldest daughter…the list of names goes on and on…school friends, dance class friends, swim friends, casual friends from around the neighborhood, friends from the mothers that are my friends…the list is endless, first name and last.
I think most of us agree that the problem is not Eden’s not remembering more that 1 friend’s name. The real problem is her not having more that 1 friend. I bet even the one mentioned was like ‘huh? I’m your frined? since when??’.
Eden’s mother clearly see every other little girl, and probably most adults, a competition to her little brat, as an undue influence, as a potential destroyer of mom’s plans and dreams. That’s why Eden will NEVER have any friends, will never go to normal schoold and/or classes, will never be allowed to think and act for herself. Clearly all she is is a cash cow for the sick, demented mother, and I can’t believe that with all the evidence out there, with all these ‘shows’ documenting this atrocious behavor, that CPS or some local lawmaker does not step in and at least try to declare it child abuse and endangerment.
Ummmm….YES! I had quite a few friends at that age plus tons of sleep overs and neighborhood gatherings and knew every single one of their names and they knew mine. I honestly dont know too many young kids who dont have friends let alone not being able to name the one they consider a friend. This kid is honestly awful, I cant imagine whats shes going to be like when shes older. Im sure her friend count will be even less than the one she cant name. and No, it wont be b/c they’re jealous, it will be b/c no one can stand to be around her. Doesnt sound like too many can as it is.
Im torn between being disgusted by her get-up (Hello to all pedos) and feeling sorry for her.
For god’s sake…are you really saying that??
When I was 7, not only did I know my friends’ first and last names, I was reading books (gasp!) and I had all the states and their capitals memorized!! This assumption that children are idiots or should be treated as such is really beginning to alarm me.
yes, 7 year olds who aren’t painfully shy, ostracized for some reason beyond their control or ostracized because they’re brats, do tend to have a little group of friends and they will tell you a lot more than the names of those friends when given the chance
At 7 you should be able to remember all the names of your classmates.
Let alone 2 or 3 friends.
My son is two and he knows his cousins by name they’re 4).
I think it’s interesting that several people have referred to this oddity as “a little girl who likes to dress up.” That’s a lot different than a child being sugared-up and tarted up (by her parents) to look like a 45 year old cocktail waitress who still has her baby teeth. It’s wrong on so many levels.
Just one poster (Kim) says she’s just playing dressup, the same one who also thinks it’s normal for a seven year old to be able to name only one friend. Maybe she’s the mom or mom’s friend doing damage control? That does happen in such threads. It’s easy to google for the kid’s name and zero in on discussions (Dina Lohan is infamous for doing this kind of surveillance and all sorts of odd supportive posts pop up on Lindsay discussions.) Does seem like an odd viewpoint for a regular celebitchy reader.
I went to middle/high school with a girl who won an emmy in the 8th grade for a made for TV movie a little over 10 years ago. She became extremely Eden like and no one liked her afterwards yet she blamed it on their jealousy. She later left school altogether and her mom homeschooled her for a while and she picked up bit parts in low budget movies and American Dreams. Somehow between then and now (only recently became friends again on facebook…she added me) she met/married a guy, had a baby, became a pothead and lives in a trailer in the backwoods. Its crazy because she came from a pretty decent, well off family too. Hollywood sucks.
Not gonna write her name down but if you research it you can figure it out..
child star=asking for trouble. Eden, i pray you somehow are blessed enough to go the Hilary Duff route instead of the Lindsay/Amanda Bynes way.
Okay–I just spent WAY too long on IMDB trying to figure out the actress. More hints?
Hehe, I did too. These sort of blind items from Real People get me salivating.
I never got this Baby Irene/Jon Bidet Ramsey thing. I think little girls should be little girls.
Was that a “typo, and it stays” moment?
OMG, it took me a few minutes to find the typo (and it really does have to stay, it’s too funny to be corrected)
I don’t think you should write any more about this young girl. I believe by doing so, you are only increasing the amount of damage that is being done to her. Someone on her “team” will believe that any publicity is good publicity and keep on pushing her on the public when they see articles like this. The writer wrote that she is a mother of a son, so she knows what it is to protect children. Shame on you.
The woman doesn’t need to be guilt-tripped about her parenting skills, she’s documenting what has already happened. She didn’t put her own child on TV for years and on multiple stations, she didn’t kick her kids shoes out of frame so the camera would focus on her–heck, I don’t know her name, her child’s name or where she lives, she’s documenting what’s around her because that’s her job. It’s not saving lives, but there’s a governing principle that comes to reporting: you report stuff. Were she stalking the family or giving out all kinds of personal information about them, it would be a different story but I’m not about to blame someone else for one family’s baffling parenting choices. People always go to ‘you’re feeding the fire, you’re supporting the enemy’ whenever they come across stories that they find morally objectionable, but this type of practice had been going on for ages before this site had even begun or sites like it, for that matter.
I don’t want to sound like I’m browbeating anyone, but crazy crap happens everywhere, regardless of whether people say things about it publically, or not. Heck, the Peloponneisan War went on for 27 danged years, but not because Thucydides was writing about it.
The hairpieces don’t even match the girl’s hair color. Pimp mama is slacking.
the thing is, she may grow up and not be actually able to sing…she might not even end up overly pretty. Not that that is a bad thing, but if she wants to be a superstar, she sort of needs the trappings to go along with. She is grorwing up thinking she is amazing, a narcissist in the making. My brother raised his boys in this way, made me cringe…gave them everything… made them think they were the most amazing creatures in the world, now they are early 20s and useless. the sense of entitlement and lack of work ethic is mind blowing….so sad to raise your children this way…they’ll just live at home off their parents forever…or marry and be horrible spouses. ugh…….
My sister-in-law raised her kids that way. Gave them whatever they wanted, never said no, coddled them and catered to them in ways no practical or sane parent ever would and told them how much better they were than everyone else.
The older one, the girl, is about 24 and a useless, empty-headed, mercenary, spoiled brat. She was going to be a star, a model and an actress. She’s average looking at best, not very bright and entirely lacking in any talent whatsoever, but my SIL encouraged her in her pursuits because she got to live vicariously through her. She’s getting to the point now where in the last couple of years she’s realized that it’s not going to happen, and she’s on her way to a spectacular meltdown, acting out in very worrisome ways and just generally behaving badly.
The younger one is still in high school, and he actually does have a little bit of musical talent, but he is very bratty, manipulative, and entitled, and not at all prepared for the real world. He’s also kind of weird and antisocial, and never looks people in the eye.
Part of me has always felt sorry for these kids. Another part of me wants to smack some sense into them, but that’s not my place. Still another part of me wants to sock my SIL in the teeth for doing that to them, but that’s also not my place. And then there’s still another part of me that’s experiencing some schadenfreude seeing my SIL’s parenting chickens come home to roost. Not proud of it, but there it is.
I feel sorry for this little girl and I’d like to punch both of her parents for doing this to her. But that ugly part of me is saying that they will most assuredly be repaid for their troubles, and won’t I enjoy seeing that. It’s just sad that the kid is the one that will suffer the most for it.
That’s the sad thing, isn’t it? This kid is going to crash into reality so hard. She’s been raised on nothing but appearances. What if her skin gets bad when she’s a teen? What if the real world doesn’t give a shit about her ‘talents’ and her crappy attitude gets her ostracised? What if she ends up chronically ill or disabled? Most people are at least somewhat equipped to handle it when life shits on them. All this kid thinks is that being a business woman is about sitting around being pretty.
And people will scream about pedophiles yet watch these shows. I don’t get it.
I’m surprised they didn’t put high heels on her. Poor, poor child. A brat, yes, but of course we know whose fault that is.
“I have girlfriends. One is named Abby, and I canāt remember the other oneās name.ā
That has to be the saddest line ever associated with this show.
Okay, imagine your average seven year old being this glib, telling you they like to “mix things up.” That’s not kid speak. How are people around her not concerned by this?
Playing dress up is one thing, but to be as smooth as she is — and smooth is not poised or charming — at that age is disturbing.
Very disturbing. Thanks for pointing that out. I saw her on an interview and was shocked at how adult-like she sounded. Wondering how much coaching it takes to get a 7 yr old to speak that way
Still after all of that I’d take Micki Wood over Kris Jenner anyday.
Please enlighten me on the difference.
St. Francis Xavier: āGive me the child until he is seven and Iāll give you the manā.
In other words, for most of history it has been understood that a person is largely who they are going to be in life at the age of seven. Seven is also commonly known as “the age of reason.” Meaning, (very simplistically) that Eden’s basic personality is pretty well formed at this point.
Little Eden is going to have a tough row to hoe, IMO.
That is exactly what I think. I couldn’t have said it better.
I think “Abby” and “the other one” are both imaginary friends.
Her snotty attitude might be viewed as precocious now, but if it continues into her pre-teens, she will be viewed as bratty and rude. She has no friends because kids won’t take the type of yit she gave to Wendy Williams. They’ll tell you to F off and go find someone else fun to play with. She’s either a LiLo or Courtney Stoddard in the making, can’t decide which.
My 8 year-old daughter likes to “play dress up”, too, but it looks NOTHING like that. She has a basket of “dressup” costumes that she throws on and then proceeds (generally on play dates with other girls) to march around the house like a tomboy playing princess. It’s very cute and there is nothing even remotely similar to the behavior of these pageant kids going on.
It’s not normal, natural behavior…at all. I believe it’s abusive to spend this kind of focus on appearance at an age when they’re more naturally inclined to examine the world outside, play rough and tumble, etcetera. At 8 years old, there is very little gender-specific natural sexualization going on. She likes purple and pink and likes princess and fairy stories, but she also plays in the dirt, finds bugs fascinating, and really doesn’t much care what her hair looks like. Naturally developing children are still quite androgynous at this age. I find the hyper focus on looks and clothes and – I’ll say it – tarting them up to look like hookers to be abusive and sick.
This poor Eden kid has no social skills whatsoever. She is completely socially tone-deaf if that interview is a typical sample of her interactions with other people. What she needs is a peer group of adults and children who are willing to tell her and show her when she’s out of line. She also needs to go play outside in the dirt and have fun.
this woman should be slapped for turning this child into a spoiled brat. she should also be slapped for dressing her up like a stripper.
so sad when parents have no lives of their own and live through their children.
I think these sad desperate mothers need to get a life and let these little girls have theirs.
I realize it is easier to judges others than it is to judge yourself. None of you even know this little girl, you only know what you read on sites like this. They want you to hate an innocent little girl. These little girls who are in pageants don’t walk around with make-up on every day. It’s a few hours on a weekend during pageant time. Outfits showing midrifs is no differnt than wearing a bathing suit and why is it ok for a child to dress up as a mass murder, ie. Freddy Kruger or Jason, but not a Julie Roberts character. I know plenty of people who have been on TNT and they are at their house for (4) days and you see bits of that in 45min, of course they are going to show the children acting up, it drives the rating up. It gives ppl something to talk about.
“pageant Mom” is a very appropriate name for you I guess. My mom was a ” pageant mom” and let me tell you every mom with that title should be charged and prosecuted. pageants are ok when your child wants to do them but forcing them as Eden is forced to is wrong. you say she’s not FORCED to? think again. She’s been brainwashed to do those awful things. she doesn’t know any better. I used to act like her before i hit 12 and realized i didn’t have a social life or any friends and a major drinking problem. I was admitted to AA at 10 years old from that lifestyle. I give Eden 10 years before she pulls an 8 year old drew berrymore