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Miss Tennessee Rachel Smith has replaced the sleazy Tara Conner as Miss USA.
Rachel Smith realized she had a real shot at the Miss USA crown when she made it to the top 15. Next up was the swimsuit portion of the pageant, and the journalism graduate from Tennessee told herself: “I’m just going to work it.” Smith, 21, ultimately bested 50 other aspiring beauty queens to win the title of Miss USA on Friday night.
The 5-foot, 11-inch-tall brunette is a graduate of Belmont University and a former intern for the production company behind “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
“I’m speechless at this point, I really am,” Smith said after the pageant.
Contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia competed to succeed Miss USA Tara Conner, who entered rehab after accounts surfaced suggesting she was boozing at New York clubs. The Kentucky native was in danger of losing her crown, but Donald Trump, who co-owns the pageant with NBC, gave her a second chance.
The telecast didn’t shy away from the controversy, opening with a string of news and interview clips about Conner’s woes. Then, the 21-year-old blonde emerged onstage wearing a strapless, ruffled gown. “It has been the most unforgettable year of my life and I’m back, and better than ever,” Conner said to wild applause from the audience at the Kodak Theatre.
Smith, of Clarksville, Tenn., edged out top finalists Meagan Yvonne Tandy of California; Cara Renee Gorges of Kansas; Helen Salas of Nevada; and Danielle Lacourse of Rhode Island, who was named the first runner-up.
I like that she uses phrases like “Work it,” acknowledging that beauty pageants are just high class strip shows, except they don’t get quite as naked. Although, come to think of it, a lot of them do naked photo spreads, too.
These will have to do until the nude spreads of her engaging in drunken lesbian sex romps are uncovered. (Assuming they exist, of course.)
     
Rachel can definitely “work it.” I don’t think she’s as fine as Miss Delaware USA Nicole Bosso, Miss Kentucky USA Michelle Stephanie Banzer, Miss Arkansas USA Kelly George, Miss Indiana USA Jami Stallings, Miss Georgia USA Brittany Swann, Miss Florida USA Jenna Edwards, or Miss Colorado USA Keena Bonella, all pictured in my pageant preview post, though.
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The Miss USA people are getting rid of Tara Conner, after all. No, she’s not being fired–her time is up.
The Miss USA pageant gears up to name a new queen this week in a live televised competition that organizers say will spotlight how reigning titleholder Tara Conner nearly lost her crown and ended up in rehab. “Certainly, our reigning Miss USA is going to be on television and we’re certainly not going to shy away from referring to what happened,” executive producer Phil Gurin told The Associated Press on Monday. “Why shy away from what’s part of our family? We embrace our family.”
 While not a centerpiece of the show, Conner will be “all over our telecast,” Gurin added. Viewers will be able to see Conner and “make their own determinations by seeing how she presents herself, what she has to say about what happened this past year … and that’s something we’ve never been able to do before.”
Published accounts last fall suggested that Conner, a native of Kentucky, was boozing it up at New York clubs — not exactly the kind of public behavior expected of a role model tapped to be Miss USA and then represent the United States in the
Miss Universe pageant.
The behavior of other Miss USA contestants over the last few months also drew unwanted public scrutiny: Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees lost her title after racy pictures of her surfaced on the Internet, and Miss New Jersey USA Ashley Harder resigned when she got pregnant.
Conner hung on to her crown after Donald Trump, who owns the Miss Universe and Miss USA contests in a partnership with NBC, decided to give her a second chance. She underwent a stint in rehab in Pennsylvania for her drinking. Trump’s decision sparked a war of words between The Donald and “The View” co-host
Rosie O’Donnell.
On Monday, 51 contestants representing all the states and the District of Columbia participated in a non-televised preliminary competition, each taking turns wearing a swimsuit and an evening gown and modeling them for the judges. The beauty queens met with judges on Sunday to conduct the interview portion of the competition.
The scores earned by contestants in the preliminary contest were not released. They are used to determine the 15 top finalists named early on in the telecast Friday.
Gurin said he doesn’t think the Conner flap has hurt the pageant’s reputation. “I think there’s been more focus on the pageant, perhaps, than there might have been otherwise, but I don’t think it’s tarnished anything,” he said. If anything, Gurin conceded, the controversy may draw more viewers to the show. “We don’t want to capitalize from someone’s misfortune,” said Gurin, who marks his fifth year producing the pageant. “Any time there’s something that stirs up the pot, certainly more eyeballs are going to come to watch.”
There’s not much doubt the Conner scandal helped get “Miss USA” back into the national spotlight. Who can name Miss USA 2005? Miss USA 2004? Any Miss USA from the last 20 years?
I don’t know who will win this year but Nicole Bosso, Miss Delaware USA (pictured in story above), looks mighty fine in that swimsuit. Then again, Miss Kentucky USA Michelle Stephanie Banzer, Miss Arkansas USA Kelly George, Miss Indiana USA Jami Stallings, Miss Georgia USA Brittany Swann, Miss Florida USA Jenna Edwards, and Miss Colorado USA Keena Bonella aren’t too bad, either.
     
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… Until she’s in Playboy that is.
Tara Conner, the Kentucky native is set to hand down her crown to a new young beauty during the live March 23 broadcast of Miss USA 2007.
source: ONTD
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Miss USA Tara Conner went back to work this week, appearing in two New York City fashion shows. I think her make-up makes her look like a hooker!
 “I feel like I am on the right track,” Connor, 21, stated Wednesday at Monica Moss’s debut fashion show benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Center. “I am just blessed to be here. I am very lucky right now.”
Wearing her “new favorite accessory” – a gold Marc Jacobs coat – she revealed her pre-runway diet: “I ate a huge cheeseburger.”
On Sunday morning, Connor modeled in the Tadashi show, and called her catwalk debut “a lot of fun.”
“You get a chance to completely get in a character,” she said. “You have the glitzed-out makeup, funky hair, and it’s very different but it’s very fun.”
Conner, who last week stated she was an alcoholic who had also tried cocaine, nearly lost her crown in December following allegations of hard partying – but she recently completed 31 days in a Pennsylvania rehab facility as part of a “second chance” offered by Miss Universe co-owner Donald Trump.
The Kentucky native says she plans to make the most of her last two months as Miss USA (she’ll crown her successor in Los Angeles on March 23).
“I am embracing every single day that I can and I want to take it for all that it’s worth and get all that I think I can get out of it,” said Connor, “I mean, when it’s time for the new girl, it’s time for the new girl and time for me to move on.”
source
Popularity: 14% [?]
Miss USA Tara Conner, who checked out of rehab on Jan. 21, says she used cocaine prior to her treatment. This is SO not surprising!
 “Cocaine was one of the drugs that I did use. It’s hard to look back at that,” she states. “I was an equal-opportunity [user] – I would try anything once.”
The 21-year-old Russell Springs, Ky., native spent 31 days at the Caron Foundation rehab facility in Wernersville, Pa., as part of a “second chance” offered to her by Donald Trump, co-owner of the Miss Universe organization, following press reports of underage drinking, drug use and promiscuity.
When asked about the rumored romantic escapades, she hedges: “I would talk to more than one guy at once – it doesn’t mean that I was sexually active with every one of these people.”
It was alcohol, she says, that had the biggest hold on her. Citing a family history of alcoholism, Conner says that for many years she was “a functioning alcoholic. If I got caught [drinking], I would stop – I was able to do that.”
(Conner also says in a Today interview airing Thursday, “I have done cocaine, yes.” According to the New York Post’s Page Six, Conner tells Matt Lauer she took antidepressants and other drugs that triggered an allergic reaction.)
Before rehab, she says, “I thought I needed to be around people, that I needed that acceptance.” Now, instead of going to clubs, she enjoys reading at home – a home she shares with a chaperone.
“I just can’t wait to get back to work,” she says. ” ‘I’m Miss USA, my name is Tara Conner, and I’m happy to meet you,’ you know? Life’s good.”
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Another Miss USA tiara is changing heads. Ashley Harder, Miss New Jersey USA, has resigned because she is pregnant. Actually, the real reason she quit is because she can’t stand Donald Trump. They are all going to quit, one by one. [not really, heh]
 Harder, 20, told the newspaper she voluntarily stepped down because it’s against pageant rules to compete while pregnant. She could not be reached for comment by The Associated Press.
Both the pageant and the runner-up for 2007 Miss New Jersey USA confirmed Monday that the reins have changed hands. Erin Abrahamson, 23, said pageant officials called her Friday to let her know she would be assuming the title.
“Whatever made her resign, I wish her lots of luck and hope she’s OK,” Abrahamson said of Harder, adding that pageant officials didn’t tell her why she would be taking over.
Harder’s resignation is the latest to hit the pageant.
Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees was stripped of her title after racy photos of her appeared on the Internet. Miss USA Tara Conner, who was caught drinking in New York bars when she was still underage, was allowed to keep her tiara after she agreed to go into rehab and undergo drug testing.
Harder, who was crowned in October, told the newspaper she’s expecting her child in “late summer” and plans to marry her live-in boyfriend.
Pageant spokeswoman Lark-Marie Anton confirmed Harder’s resignation, but would only say it was “for personal reasons.”
The Miss USA pageant is to be held on March 23 in Los Angeles. The winner of that competition goes on to compete in the Miss Universe pageant. Both pageants are owned by Donald Trump and NBC.
At least she didn’t quit because she was photographed shoving her tongue down another girls throat.
source: ONTD
Popularity: 25% [?]
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Popularity: 20% [?]
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