Fact check: Was the winner of beauty pageant stripped of her crown for her religious beliefs?
When news first broke, conservative websites cited her faith and political views
Certain U.S. news media have been fond of running stories suggesting that conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, are under persecution simply for holding the beliefs they do. And that certainly was true last week as news broke that this year’s winner of Miss North Carolina USA pageant, Brittany Boltinhouse, on her way later this month to the national competition, had lost her crown.
Some sample headlines:
🟪 New York Daily News: Brittany Boltinhouse, ex-North Carolina Miss USA, says title stripped due to her faith
🟪 Fox News: Former Miss North Carolina USA says conservative Christian values played role in losing crown
🟪 TMZ: Former Miss North Carolina USA: I Was Targeted For My Conservative Christian Views!
Do the headlines tell the full story?
Truth verdict: ❌
It is true that Boltinhouse has conservative Christian beliefs with conservative political views to match. But while the pageant organization has not gone into specific details, it has become clear that it handed over Boltinhouse’s crown to the runner-up because of conduct that took place years before the pageant was held, conduct that would be damaging to the Miss USA brand.
It all likelihood, that conduct included social media posts that Boltinhouse, now 27, wrote as a teenager in which she repeatedly used a form of the n-word and made other types of disparaging comments about people while using vulgar language. Some of those posts were published Thursday in The NC Beat.
In announcing the decision to de-crown Boltinhouse, the CEO of the Miss USA organization, Thom Brodeur, wrote for Instagram:
The Miss USA organization does not tolerate racism, homophobia, transphobia nor language that strips any person of their dignity — whoever they are. That is not a policy written for a press release. It is the floor of what it means to represent this brand.
A title here isn’t a trinket. It is a position of trust, extended by an organization and accepted by a woman who agrees to carry a standard in public.
When that standard is broken, the title cannot continue as though nothing happened.
In an video interview with the Carolina Journal published shortly after that announcement, Boltinhouse cited a confidentiality agreement as she declined to discuss details about what led to the pageant’s action, although she acknowledged that she has grown into being a different person than what she once was.
Some of the headlines about her losing the crown because of her faith came from comments she made during that interview. She said in part:
… [A]s of today, I believe and think I was stripped from my title because of my political stance and my belief system as a conservative Christian woman.
… So I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. … I am proud of my faith. I’m proud of my standards. I’m a proud conservative woman but a Christian woman. I’m a God-fearing woman. I believe that we, what is the phrase, [are] standing in holy places at all times and in all things and in all places. And, you know, I will never let my guard down for my faith.
And also I love this country. I believe in land and prosperity and priesthood, and America is what it gives is that is, I believe we believe that a nation under God. That’s who I am, and that’s what my parents taught me to be, is a person who loves this country because this country, this country has given me opportunity, and the opportunity to show my religious beliefs. And I’m proud of that.
She also said she believes she has been judged with a narrative “that is just not true.”