New York: Everyone expected Donald Trump to utter his catchphrase "You're fired!" to Miss USA on Tuesday but instead the billionaire gave the beauty queen a second chance after reports of misbehavior including underage drinking.
In a nationally televised news conference full of tears fit for a pageant finale, the co-owner of the Miss USA and Miss Universe contests said Tara Conner has agreed to go into a rehabilitation program for an unspecified problem and would not be stripped of the title of Miss USA 2006.
Media reports of the blond beauty queen partying at bars and nightclubs in New York — where the legal drinking age is 21 — began surfacing last week.
The former Miss Kentucky USA turned 21 on Monday. "Tara is going to be given a second chance," the real estate mogul said after meeting with Conner earlier on Tuesday.
"Tara got caught up in the whirlwind of New York. She made some very, very bad choices," he said. "She admits that she made mistakes."
In a statement after the news conference, Trump said Conner's duties would be "limited as she receives the help she needs during this personal time."
Conner tearfully told reporters at the news conference that she realises she is a role model and denied reports of widespread problems with alcohol and drugs.
"I wouldn't say that I am an alcoholic. That would be pushing the envelope a little bit," she said. "I don't have a problem with anything like that."
Trump did say that Conner would undergo drug testing. Trump has used his catchphrase, "You're fired!" from his reality television show The Apprentice on a beauty queen before.
In 2002 he fired Miss Universe, Russia's Oxana Federova, for failing to perform her pageant duties.
The twice-divorced Trump, now on his third chance at marriage, said that if Conner fails, she will be immediately terminated — hearing those infamous words after all.
The Miss Universe Organisation, producers of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA competitions, is a partnership between Trump and the National Broadcasting Co. Inc.
It is not the only beauty pageant to be the subject of a scandal. In 1984, organisers of the rival Miss America pageant had to endure nude photos that surfaced during the reign of Vanessa Williams.
Williams was pressured to resign her post, but then her career really took off — she's been nominated for both Tony and Grammy Awards, starred in movies such as Soul Food and Eraser, and now stars on the hit ABC comedy Ugly Betty.
Comments
0 comment