MUSKEGON, MI – It’s Jett’s world, and everyone else is just living in it.
An 8-year-old in Muskegon is strutting his shag as he moves his way to the top of a national mullet competition.
Jett Parker is one of 25 competitors in the third and final round of the kids’ division of the USA Mullet Competition. Voting begins Sept. 24 and runs through Oct. 1.
“My mullet, my life, my world could be different – but I like it how it is right now, just like how I like my mullet,” Parker said, shaking his curls.
Each winner of the kids, teens and adult divisions of the competition will receive $10,000. If he wins, Parker hopes to use the money to “watch the Lions play at the Super Bowl.”
The third-grader has been growing out his locks since he was 5.
Parker met his dad’s friend Tony at the Pizza and Sub Shop in Muskegon three years ago.
“Tony’s mullet was glorious – all business in the front and a curly party in the back, accompanied by some solid mutton chops and beard,” Jett Parker states in his competition bio. “Tony inspired me that very day to grow out my hair and have an even sweeter mullet than his.”
“And I really like the style, personally,” Jett Parker said.
Parker and his mullet go by the nicknames “The Flow” and “Jett Lag.”
With natural curls, Parker had to commit to taking care of his hair to maintain it.
“Even the couple of times that me or his mom might have said, ‘If you don’t take care of it, we’ll get rid of it.’ He fought tooth and nail with that,” said Ty Parker, Jett’s dad. “He stayed true to it.”
The competition allows people to cast their votes for free and donate to Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors.
The nonprofit provides handicap-accessible renovations for veterans wounded in combat.
Jett Parker ended the second round in eighth place out of 100 competitors.
He said one of his favorite parts of having a mullet is the “fans” he’s made around town and at local football games, where he and his dad campaign for votes.
“He looks like a mini politician, it’s crazy,” Ty Parker said. “He’s standing up on benches, shaking hands and people are going to take pictures with him.”
The Parkers said they might campaign at the University of Michigan’s Big House in Ann Arbor to get the kid to the top.