Apparently, bigotry does not pay in the beauty pageant world. At least, not as far as the Miss USA Organization is concerned.
Just more than a month after being crowned Miss North Carolina USA 2026, Brittany Boltinhouse has been dethroned over what Miss USA Organization Chair and CEO Thom Brodeur called conduct that violated the pageant organization’s standards and that occurred “over an extended period of time,” as reported by People Magazine.
As per time-honored pageant tradition, the first runnerup, Myla Hadley, has assumed the title.
While Brodeur did not specify exactly what conduct prompted the decision to strip Boltinhouse of her crown, he did stress that the organization “does not tolerate racism, homophobia, transphobia nor language that strips any person of their dignity.”
He added, “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.”
Brodeur said that the decision to rescind Boltinhouse’s title was based on her “conduct over an extended period of time” rather than a single incident. But he also urged people to remember that Boltinhouse is “still a human being” and while “zero tolerance is the standard for conduct,” it is “not permission to strip someone of their humanity.”
Boltinhouse is a Latina woman of Honduran descent, and only the third Latina to win the Miss North Carolina title. According to the Pageant.bro Instagram page, she is 27 years old, from Wilmington and “a dynamic entrepreneur and the CEO of Floor Masters NC.”
— Tammye Nash