(Reuters) — Oklahoma’s Olivia Jordan was crowned Miss USA on Sunday (July 15), capping weeks of controversy in the run-up to the annual beauty pageant after its co-owner Donald Trump made incendiary remarks about Mexican immigrants while announcing his run for president.
Several judges, guests and the event’s hosts all backed out after the real estate mogul described some migrants from Mexico to the United States as drug-runners and rapists while announcing in June he was seeking the Republican nomination.
Despite the controversy, no incidents or disruptions were apparent either in the audience or on stage during the live broadcast from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, carried on cable channel Reelz after NBC dropped the show over Trump’s remarks.
Trump, who traditionally attends, said on Saturday he would be campaigning and would not be on hand.
Jordan, 26, an actress and graduate of Boston University, won the 64th pageant after deftly answering a question about the nation’s next hot-button issue. Other finalists stumbled while answering similarly topical questions from the judges, who were all past pageant winners such as Miss Universe and Miss USA.
Still beaming from her win, Jordan described what it felt like to win the title of Miss USA.
“I’m grateful that it was me. I’m grateful it was my year and that whatever I did, that the judges saw it. I truly was focused on living in the moment and enjoying the experience. So I had the best time on that stage. I really did. I had so much fun and I knew that at the end of the night I was going to hug my family and they were going to be proud of me and that was enough for me in that moment. Obviously, I wanted the crown, 100 percent. That was why I was in this process because I wanted this title and I wanted everything that comes along with it. And I was so grateful that it all worked out. It’s crazy.”
While speaking to Reuters on Wednesday (July 15), Jordan did not shy away from the controversy surrounding Donald Trump.
“I respect Trump as a businessman. He has created a great fortune for himself. He has really built an empire and that’s impressive. I’m impressed by people who hustle really hard and can have great success in life. And that’s something that I aspire to do. I aspire to work very hard and have great success. I hope that I can really use that to give back to the world,” she said.
Jordan also said, “I think that Donald Trump running for president is unrelated to what the pageant is about. I think that we got caught in a political crossfire and it is what it is. He has the right to have opinions and he’s talking about issues that are important. Immigration is an important issue. It is something that we should be talking about and it’s good to have those kinds of conversations. I think that the pageant ultimately stands for diversity. It’s been standing for that for the past 64 years. It has brought so many cultures together through the Miss Universe Organization and has given women of all cultures, of all backgrounds an opportunity to shine. And I think that this year in Baton Rouge, it was the epitome of that and I was grateful to be part of it.”
During the Miss USA pageant, several of the top 15 finishers spoke of their Latin American heritage, including Rhode Island’s Anea Garcia, who was raised by her grandmother, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. Garcia came in third among 51 contestants.
Texas’ Ylianna Guerra, who has Mexican roots, was first runner-up.
During her reign as Miss USA, Jordan said she intends to call attention to Alzheimer’s disease and the scourge of child prostitution.
“I am going to be working with the Alzheimer’s Association, continuing my work with them. I have been working with them in Oklahoma. I helped raise two million dollars in the state of Oklahoma alone, which was record-breaking. And now I have a national platform to really spread awareness and get people interested in this disease because it’s the only disease in the top 10 causes of death in the United States without a treatment or a cure. I think that this is something that we should be talking about. And if we talk about it, we can get people to rally behind it and find a treatment and find a cure. I think that we are right there on the brink and if we could just get people talking, we can get over that hill. And I also work with raising awareness to get children out of prostitution in the United States. That’s something that’s very important to me. I’ve always been an advocate for women’s rights and I think that protecting young children is incredibly important and rallying behind that cause has been meaningful to me.”
