Things turned ugly in the beauty pageant world as Miss Pennsylvania USA not only denounced her new crown but made allegations of fraud against the Miss Universe Organization.
Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin claimed June 5 that other contestants had knowledge of the winners of the Miss USA pageant before they were announced on stage at the June 3 competition.
Donald Trump, co-owner of the organization, refuted Monnin’s claims June 8 and spoke out against Monnin, who he said “didn’t deserve to be in the top 15,” of the show.
“It’s up to the judges, they bring it down to 10, they bring it down to five—nobody knows anything,” said Trump.
“She made a very false charge and she knows it was a false charge,” Trump said in a phone interview on ABC News’ “Good Morning America.” “I think that, frankly, she should apologize but we will be bringing a lawsuit against her,” he said.
In a Facebook post June 5, Monnin railed against the organization and confirmed her resignation.
“I witnessed another contestant who said she saw the list of the Top 5 BEFORE THE SHOW EVER STARTED …,” Monnin wrote. “As for me, I believe her words and I will not encourage anyone to compete in a system that in my opinion and from what I witnessed is dishonest.”
Trump said that the woman who allegedly recited the names from a list she had seen in an open folder the morning of the show, has already been interviewed.
“My people have said that they’ve already interviewed that person and that person said it’s not true,” said Trump, refusing to disclose the woman’s name. However, several sources indicated the pageant contestant was Miss Florida, Karina Brez.
Monnin, of Cranberry, Pa., won the title of Miss Pennsylvania last year and stirred up trouble for also voicing her opinions about the decision to allow Jenna Talackova, a 23-year-old transgender beauty queen from Canada, to compete. ”I refuse to be part of a pageant system that has so far and so completely removed itself from its foundational principles as to allow and support natural born males to compete in it,” Monnin wrote in an e-mail to pageant organizers, according to ABC News.
Miss Rhode Island, 20-year-old Olivia Culpo was crowned Miss USA and will move on to compete in the Miss Universe pageant.
