Miss Disastrous: 23 biggest beauty pageant scandals

Miss Disastrous: 23 biggest beauty pageant scandals - Beauty pageants are a time-honored contest in America, with hundreds of young women displaying their talents and hoping to be crowned—and struggling to keep the crown on. From lawsuits and disqualifications to public humiliation and protest, check out this gallery of the most scandalous pageant moments, as determined by Ranker.

0 / 30 Fotos

Alicia Machado must cut down or be cut out - Machado won Miss Universe in 1996, and under this new burning spotlight, the public was quick to notice her weight gain following the competition. Pageant officials threatened to revoke her title if she didn’t lose the weight.

1 / 30 Fotos

Alicia Machado must cut down or be cut out - Donald Trump, owner of Miss Universe, took it up a notch by calling Machado an “eating machine” live on ‘The Howard Stern Show.’ Machado did lose the weight and kept her title.

2 / 30 Fotos

Marjorie Wallace's relationships - Wallace was Miss World 1973 for less than four months when she was stripped of her title. Her behavior, including dating high-profile men like Tom Jones and George Best, was deemed unfit for a crown.

3 / 30 Fotos

Miss Protesters - The 1968 Miss America pageant was met with 400 female protesters who chanted, “Ain’t she sweet, makin’ profit off her meat,” and crowned a live sheep. They also dumped a huge amount of mops, aprons, dusters, cosmetics, and bras into a “Freedom Trash Can.”

4 / 30 Fotos

Miss Protesters meet Mr Protesters - A counter-protest erupted with hundreds of men on its side, and when the MC Bert Parks was asked what he would do if a protester crashed his signature performance, he infamously said, “I'll grab her by the throat and keep right on singing.”

5 / 30 Fotos

Laura Zúñiga: model, pageant queen, and drug trafficker? - The 2008 Miss Hispanic America was soon arrested along with others for racketeering, drug trafficking, weapons charges, and money laundering when the Mexican police caught them carrying a load of guns and cash. She claimed she had just been going shopping, but was sentenced to 40 days in jail. The case was ultimately cut short due to lack of evidence.

6 / 30 Fotos

Rima Fakih could be nearly naked, but she couldn’t be on a pole - Fakih won Miss USA in 2010, which involved her strutting around in a tiny bikini, but when photos surfaced of her dancing fully clothed on a pole in 2007 during a radio contest, suddenly everyone was upset. Fakih kept her title, but the controversy hindered her in the following Miss Universe contest.

7 / 30 Fotos

Selfie caused a stir - A simple selfie of four Miss Universe contestants in 2015 would have gone unnoticed by most people, except that this selfie included both Miss Lebanon Saly Greige and Miss Israel Doron Matalon. With tensions high between Lebanon and Israel, Greige later wrote that she was “cautious to avoid being in any photo or communication with Miss Israel," and she claimed that Matalon had just walked into the photo.

8 / 30 Fotos

Suspicions about Nia Sanchez - Soon after becoming Miss USA in 2014, people began to question her state of origin. It appeared the reigning Miss Nevada had previously competed to be Miss California three times, and suspicions were raised as to whether she faked her Nevada residency to compete in an easier pageant. Nothing ended up coming of it.

9 / 30 Fotos

Steve Harvey’s massive tiny mistake - In one of the most cringeworthy moments on television, Harvey accidentally crowned the wrong Miss Universe—Miss Columbia—in 2015. She did the traditional grand wave to the crowd and Harvey returned to the stage to deliver the devastating news. You can actually see them take the crown off Miss Columbia’s head and put it on Miss Philippines.

10 / 30 Fotos

Helen Morgan was a mom - The Welsh Miss World 1974 winner was forced to resign four days after being crowned when the media found out that she had an 18-month-old son. She was still unmarried and so she wasn’t breaking the competition rules, but she was pressured to resign anyway.

11 / 30 Fotos

Amanda Longacre dethroned for being too old - Miss Delaware 2014 was stripped of her title two weeks later when pageant officials decided she was too old to compete in the upcoming Miss America and told her she couldn’t keep the crown or her scholarships either.

12 / 30 Fotos

Amanda Longacre dethroned for being too old - Longacre sued both pageants with claims that this act of disqualifying winners was a strategy used for fundraising and appearances. She did eventually get her scholarship money back, Delaware Online reports.

13 / 30 Fotos

The Morgan Elizabeth Woolard conspiracy - Miss Oklahoma came in second in the Miss USA 2010 pageant, and some conservatives believed the reason she lost was because of her support of the controversial Arizona law SB1070, which involved heavier control of illegal immigrants.

14 / 30 Fotos

Bert Parks’ ungraceful discharge - The host of Miss America from 1955 to 1979 allegedly found out that he was fired from a newspaper. The pageant wanted to attract a younger crowd, and even his classic song ‘There She Is’ has been thrown aside for a new one.

15 / 30 Fotos

Caitlin Upton trips over her tongue - Miss South Carolina was competing for Miss Teen USA in 2007 when the most viral moment of her life unfolded. She was asked why she thought a fifth of Americans couldn’t locate the US on a map and, in a jumble of references to countries like South Africa, Iraq, and “the Asian countries,” she also coined the phrase “like such as.”

16 / 30 Fotos

Caitlin Upton trips over her tongue - She said, “I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh, people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future.”

17 / 30 Fotos

Sheena Monnin was trumped by Trump - Miss Pennsylvania resigned from the Miss USA 2012 pageant and accused Trump and the other organizers of fixing the contest. She also took to social media to air her thoughts about how fraudulent the competition is. Unfortunately, Monnin had signed a settlement with the pageant agreeing not to defame it, and she was ordered to pay $5 million to Trump. She also tried to sue her own lawyer, but she lost that case too.

18 / 30 Fotos

Miss Colorless America - For a while following the inception of Miss America, the pageant held racist clauses like “Rule 7” which stated contestants had to be “of good health and of the white race.” Though the clause was repealed, the effects are still felt. 2007’s Miss California, Christina Silva, blamed this codified racism when her title was stripped due to an alleged vote miscount. She sued the pageant, but eventually dropped the case for lack of evidence.

19 / 30 Fotos

Carrie Prejean angers the gay community - The openly gay MC Perez Hilton asked Miss California her thoughts on same-sex marriage at the Miss USA 2009 pageant, and Prejean responded that she believed in “opposite marriage” between a man and a woman. She came in second and blamed her loss on prejudice against her religious beliefs, which might’ve held up a little better if topless photos of her didn’t surface soon after, ultimately stripping her of her title.

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Tara Conner gets a second chance - Miss USA 2006 struggled publicly with drugs and alcohol, but instead of getting the boot, Trump called a televised press conference where he gave her a second chance. Conner went to rehab and became a consultant for treatment centers.

21 / 30 Fotos

Katie Rees falls prey to early social media - Compromising photos of Miss Nevada USA 2007 kissing women and simulating sexual acts surfaced online soon after her victory, forcing her to resign.

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Danielle Lloyd sued for a bad reputation - Miss Great Britain 2006 was stripped of her title when it was revealed that she had posed for Playboy and that she had dated a pageant judge. Lloyd was sued by pageant organizers for thousands of dollars for damaging their reputation.

23 / 30 Fotos

Vanessa Williams got nude too - The first African-American winner of Miss America had to give up her crown when a magazine released nude photos Williams had taken years prior. She went on to become a successful singer and actress though, so she still won in the end.

24 / 30 Fotos

Lindsey Evans’s smoky start - Miss Teen Louisiana rushed out of a restaurant in 2008, leaving the bill and her purse, which allegedly contained a bag of weed. She was stripped of her title, though Playboy welcomed her the following year.

25 / 30 Fotos

Emily Kachote strips down and gets stripped of title - Miss Zimbabwe 2015 was dethroned less than two months after she won, when nude photos of Kachote surfaced on the internet. The pageant requires contestants to sign an agreement promising that they haven’t posed nude and would not in the future if they won.

26 / 30 Fotos

Leona Gage’s pants are on fire - Miss World 1957 wore the crown for just one sweet day until her mother-in-law revealed that Gage was married, had two children, and wasn’t the age she said she was—all surefire ways to become a pageant outlaw.

27 / 30 Fotos

The recent scandal that changed Miss America - Several leaders of the Miss America Organization resigned after emails leaked revealing that they had sent derogatory messages to the contestants, including references to their weight and sex lives.

28 / 30 Fotos

A new Miss America - The all-women board is now scrapping the swimsuit portion and working towards including and celebrating women of all sizes.

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