A BRITISH modelling and talent agency has caused controversy by hiring a three year old American Madeleine McCann lookalike and marketing her for 600 pounds per hour.
British newspaper the Evening Standard revealed that the Juliet Adams Modelling and Talent Agency based in Streatham, south London, is marketing three year-old Kelsey Lynn Kudla as “perfect” to play the part of missing Madeleine McCann.
The child’s mother, Kris Pfister, who contacted the agency from the US via its website, said that her daughter is constantly stopped and told that she looks like Madeleine and that it was Kelsey’s idea to star as the missing four year old if a film was made.
“When we heard a film might be made,” she is reported as saying, “Kelsey said: ‘Mummy, I could play Madeleine’.”
Shona Juliet Adams, 41, who runs the modeling and talent agency from her two-bedroom council flat, said that playing the lead role in a film about Madeleine McCann would be a huge opportunity, earning Kelsey around nine million pounds.
“She will become a name in her own right and make
it as a child model and actress because she’s got her foot in the door,” said Shona Adams. “She’s a compelling contender. It’s in the eyes.”
Kate and Gerry’s spokesman, Clarence Mitchell said: “This is deeply offensive. It’s a disgraceful, hurtful, shameless moneymaking scheme.
“I would urge this woman to think again about what she’s doing. We would be horrified if people were to pay for this sort of thing.”
He also said that Shona Adams had not asked the McCann’s permission to hire a Madeleine lookalike, and that if she had, it would have been refused.
“She had better think long and hard about what she is doing,” he added.
The Evening Standard said that Shona Adams asked their reporter to sign a contract demanding 4,000 pounds to use photographs of Kelsey Kudla and that further work would cost 600 pounds per hour.
Criticism of the McCanns was widespread earlier this week following reports that they are in talks with film makers about Madeleine’s disappearance, already dubbed “Madeleine the Movie” by the British press.
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