Toddlers & Tiaras Meets Intervention

In a sort of conflation of reality television concepts, last night’s episode of Intervention may have provided a peek into what the future could hold for some of those career kiddie pageant contestants we see on Toddlers & Tiaras. Tiffany began competing in pageants when she was 9 months old, and continued to do so regularly throughout her childhood winning over 300 trophies and crowns. She admits being addicted to that “top-of-the-world” feeling she received when she won a pageant, and the memory of it makes her feel even worse now that she’s on “the bottom” as a drug addict. She quit pageants and high school when she was 16 and immediately began using meth, GHB, and Xanax, to which she’s been addicted for 8 years.

Obviously, being a former child pageant contestant isn’t solely responsible for her current state. Tiffany’s had a rough background, with an abusive father and a permissive mother. Additionally, she’s caught up in something of a Winter’s Bone lifestyle, in which she and several members of her extended family cook crystal meth. She uses a rented storage locker—where she keeps her trophies and crowns from her pageant days—to use drugs. In the end, she agreed to go to treatment, but left early and returned to using.