I witnessed another contestant who said she saw the list of the Top 5 BEFORE THE SHOW EVER STARTED proceed to call out in order who the Top 5 were before they were announced on stage. Apparently the morning of June 3rd she saw a folder lying open to a page that said ‘FINAL SHOW Telecast, June 3, 2012’ and she saw the places for Top 5 already filled in…
After it was indeed the Top 5 I knew the show must be rigged; I decided at that moment to distance myself from an organization who did not allow fair play and whose morals did not match my own.
(Miss Pennsylvania USA Sheena Monnin, Huffington Post, June 6, 2012)
No doubt Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin, who did not even make the first cut, expects this sensational claim to make her more famous than Miss Rhode Island Olivia Culpo, who actually won.
And she’s right. After all, Miss California Carrie Prejean became far more famous – after claiming that she lost the Miss USA 2009 pageant because she voiced opposition to same-sex marriage – than Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton, who actually won. Can you even remember the name of the girl who won last year…?
But no matter her motives, Sheena is also right about this pageant being rigged. So pay no mind to Trump’s defensive bluster about suing her for defamation. Because the last thing he wants is to be cross-examined under oath on the way he telegraphs to his handpicked judges which contestants he thinks are the 5 fairest of them all.
And, that he not only handpicks the judges but huddles with them before the voting begins makes a mockery of his defense that no rigging is possible because the unimpeachable accounting firm of Ernst & Young tabulates the votes. In other words, the rigging comes not in the tabulation of points/votes by the accountants but in the awarding of them by the judges.
But the real reason I believe Miss Pennsylvania’s claim is that I was sufficiently amused to comment on similar and even more credible claims two years ago in Miss USA Trumps Another Ethic Stereotype, The iPINIONS Journal, May 18, 2010. Here, in part, is what I wrote back then:
Donald Trump is the owner of the Miss Universe Organization, which includes Miss USA but not Miss America. And reports abound that he handpicks the winners in his pageants:
TMZ obtained an audio tape recorded during the pre-show screening portion of the 2009 [Miss USA] pageant, in which Trump can clearly be heard exercising “The Trump Rule” — which guarantees a certain number of “beautiful” women will advance in the contest.
(TMZ, November 12, 2009)
More to the point, there’s this:
[T]hanks to an interview with the pageant choreographer, we now know that The Donald himself … flies in the day before the telecast and hand-picks six of the ladies, and has been doing so since 1995.
(Guanabee, September 3, 2009)
Of course, one might wonder how Trump then guarantees who actually wins. Well, let’s just say that it’s very easy for him to indicate to his handpicked judges who he thinks should be crowned the fairest of them all. And it’s reasonable to assume that none of the judges would want to disappoint The Donald.
Trump is a litigious buffoon, but he’s no dummy. Which is why pigs will fly before he takes this matter to court. Hell, having made such a typical spectacle of threatening to sue, it would not surprise me if he pays Miss Pennsylvania lots of cash in exchange for the PR apology he’s demanding … and then have her sign a confidentiality agreement to cover up his shenanigans.
The only wonder is that Gloria Allred, that avenging angel of opportunistic damsels of dubious distinction, has not already retained Miss Pennsylvania as a client. Truth be told, no lawyer is more adept at extracting settlements in such high-profile cases than Allred – as the $10 million she extracted from Tiger Woods for Rachel Uchitel will attest….
Related commentaries:
Miss USA 2009
Miss USA Trumps Another…