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Mummy's little Lolita: The 11-year-old girl whose beauty treatments cost £300 a month to make her look like Barbie
By Jenny Johnston Last updated at 12:27 AM on 05th July 2008
She wore her first set of false eyelashes at eight, and her beauty treatments cost £300 a month. A sick abuse of an 11-year-old? 'No', insists Sasha's mother, 'I just want her to be famous...'
At 11, Sasha Bennington is too young to remember the days when Jordan was just a country and being branded 'fake' was something to be ashamed of.
But maybe the youngster's biggest tragedy is that her mother, Jayne, 31, is in no hurry to paint a picture of how it used to be.
All about the look: Sasha Bennington is just 11 but her mother loves the way she looks
Jayne is talking breezily about how Sasha had her first set of false nails glued on at eight, and now enjoys the sort of rigorous beauty regime - hair extensions, fake tans, pedicures - that was once the preserve of porn stars and Dolly Parton, not school children from Burnley in Lancashire.
Still, times have changed. 'All the kids are at it now,' insists Jayne. 'We spend about £300 a month on beauty treatments for her.
'Sasha's friends are the same. All girls their age are. Of course they are! Why else would you be able to buy make-up for pre-teens at Boots?
'Perhaps it's different in country areas, where they don't need to grow up so fast. But, around big cities, girls have got to be more forward and act older than they are. That's just the way it is.
'I don't understand why people get so upset about it. None of it is permanent. Tans wash off. Hair extensions come out. Why all the fuss?'
Just over a year ago, there was fuss galore when Jayne entered Sasha (then ten) in the junior Miss British Isles competition - Britain's first adult-style beauty pageant for children...