The dad of a seven-year-old girl whose Taylor Swift impression made her an internet sensation, has hit back at critics who said her performance was “sexualised”.
Xia Vigor wore an outfit similar to one previously worn by Swift when she performed ‘You Belong With Me’ on Philippines TV show ‘Your Face Sounds Familiar Kids’.
Alan Vigor, from Exeter, Devon, who lives in the Philippines, said his daughter would never dress like that on a normal day, the outfit was just for the show.
Piers Morgan called the clip one of the “creepiest things I’ve ever watched” on ‘Good Morning Britain’ and Nadia Sawahla said on ‘Loose Women’: “I have a real, visceral response to it, I’m repulsed by it.”
Hitting back, Vigor told MailOnline: “[Piers Morgan] is wrong. He doesn’t understand the context. The culture here is very, very different.”
Vigor added: “Xia is very into everything. She is a very inquisitive girl and she wants to do a lot of things and I want to give her that chance.
“She’s not going a friend’s birthday party in high heels and lipstick. It’s not like that. She would never dress up like that on a normal day.”
Xia stars in a family sitcom in the Philippines and has more than 120,000 followers on her Instagram account.
She first starred in a talent show in the Philippines when she was five (having moved to the country when she was three) and has since done 12 TV adverts.