GARLAND, Texas - A six-year-old Texas girl who won four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert with an essay falsely claiming her father died in Iraq isn't going to the show after all.
The contest's sponsor, a U.S. store chain named Club Libby Lu, says it is withdrawing the prize and awarding it to another contestant.
It didn't identify the new winner.
Officials of the Chicago-based chain had surprised the girl on Friday at a Club Libby Lu store in a mall in a Dallas suburb.
The chain sells clothes, accessories and games for young girls.
The girl won a makeover that included a blonde Hannah Montana wig, as well as the grand prize: airfare for four to Albany, N.Y., and four tickets to the sold-out Hannah Montana concert on Jan. 9.
The opening line in the essay was: "My daddy died this year in Iraq."
The girl's mother had told Club Libby Lu officials that the girl's father died April 17 in a roadside bombing in Iraq, company spokeswoman Robyn Caulfield said.
But the mother, Priscilla Ceballos, admitted later Friday that the essay and the military information she provided about her daughter's father were untrue.
"We did the essay and that's what we did to win. We did whatever we could do to win," Ceballos said in an interview Friday with KDFW-TV of Dallas. "But when (Caulfield) asked me if this essay is true, I said 'No, this essay is not true."'
Mary Drolet, chief executive of Club Libby Lu, announced the decision to withdraw the award on Saturday.
"With this decision, we hope to revive the intended spirit of the contest, which was designed to make a little girl's holidays extra special," Drolet said.
