Question to Miss Hawaii USA questioned; Miss California responds to critics
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The top 15 contestants stand on stage during the 2016 Miss USA pageant in Las Vegas, Sunday, June 5, 2016. (Jason Ogulnik/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)
LAS VEGAS >> A magazine editor who asked Miss Hawaii about voting for president, and Miss California, who flubbed a question, responded on social media to criticism about their performances in the Miss USA pageant.
Miss California USA, Nadia Mejia, was widely mocked on social media after stumbling, closing her eyes and pausing when answering a question Sunday about economic inequality.
“I think that the rich need to be able to be giving and I think the poor need to work hard and I think the middle class need to come together and find an in-between,” she eventually said.
Mejia answered her critics on Instagram , writing that she was praying to God for the right words and he answered, “It’ll take longer than 30 seconds to answer that babe.” She also posted a video of her singing “I don’t know about the economy” to the tune of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way.”
The 20-year-old model is the daughter of 1990s one-hit-wonder singer Gerardo, known for “Rico Suave.”
Miss Hawaii Chelsea Hardin, who came in second to winner Deshauna Barber of the District of Columbia, punted when asked who she would vote for among the likely presidential candidates, Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton. The question was framed with Clinton’s likely status of being the first woman nominated by a major political party in the race for the White House.
Hardin said there was no way to correctly answer the question during the beauty pageant and that gender doesn’t matter when deciding the president.
Many on social media criticized the question from Harper’s Bazaar editor Laura Brown, saying that asking a contestant to reveal who she is planning to vote for is inappropriate.
Brown defended herself on Twitter, saying that she asked the question she was given. She says Miss Hawaii “answered beautifully.”
38 responses to “Question to Miss Hawaii USA questioned; Miss California responds to critics”
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In Ms. California’s defense, none of the GOP candidates during the nomination process had a better answer and they had months to prepare for a question they know would get asked in some form over and over again.
In your defense, anyone who puts their faith in the hands of a political party will give up all objectivity in order to defend that party’s positions.
My defense? I’m not voting Clinton.
And I agree with your stance. It will be interesting to see if the GOP deals with how it manages the problem that its positions are diametrically opposed to Trump’s.
Well, I hope you won’t be voting for a lying, con artist. This might be the year where the libertarian candidate receives a significant number of votes. Two ex governors would sure be a better choice than the Donald.
This year might be the year that voters throw off the shackles of the two party system and finally get themselves out from under their communal boot.
Johnson-Weld is the best ticket hands down right now.
It will be interesting to see if Winston and Thos reject the best ticket solely because I’m for it. They are petty enough to do that.
She was ridiculous but the entire farce of a competition is ridiculous. It is an insult to women and a vestige of savage sexism and oppression.
scary place…bahahahahahahaahahhahahahah
lol too funny
Yikes!
LOL! Too funny!!
Yeah yeah yeah. We know your opinion on this.
Killjoy.
What would be your answer? Take the money from those who earn it and give, and I mean literally give, it to those who do not?
Highly stratified societies in history tend to end badly for those at the upper levels. Historically speaking, their heads tend to end up on spikes when the lower economic classes finally revolt. You can soapbox all you want, but time and time again in history, societies move away from extreme economic stratification via bloodshed.
Interestingly enough, a large number of uber wealthy have come around to this conclusion and in their self interest of not wanting to end up as a decapitated head on a pike, favor a more egalitarian system with promises to give away most, if not all, of their wealth.
Furthermore, I know more than a few people personally who are fabulously wealthy who frankly didn’t do anything to earn it. On top of that, I have enough education and financial training to know that many highly paid CEOs and upper management are net drags upon earnings, bringing in nowhere even close to what they add in what they cost in salary, pension, deferred comp, stock options and other forms of compensation. Many of them actually seriously harmed their firms and even forced them into bankruptcy.
I’m not so deluded into drinking the kool-aid into thinking that the highly paid actually earn or deserve it, nor do I think that those who are paid poorly are all being screwed. The truth, like always, is somewhere in between and we have structural issues that are slowing growth such as the absurd increase in college administrators and their salaries raising college prices, saddling graduates with debt, slowing their buying of houses, cars and starting families, so on and so forth. Not to mention how our education system does a bad job at retraining people who’ve been basically rendered obsolete by technology (see coal miners) and how we aren’t following Germany in pushing kids who aren’t fit for college into technical apprenticeships.
The question is wildly unfair to ask and the answer to properly answer, would require at least 30 minutes and more likely several hours to several days. Furthermore, it looks like the contestant was not given heads up on the question where my point still stands about how candidates for the GOP nomination had literal months, if not years to prepare a proper answer but frankly came off no better than she did. What does that say about them when a beauty contestant on the spot basically did as well as they did?
It would be to everyone’s advantage if economic inequality is controlled and limited if for no other reason that the economy will collapse if the middle class has no money to spend. Voodoo economics has never worked except to collapse the economy.
No increase taxes on the rich!
Yes, lets just squeeze the middle class. Has worked so well in the past. But what really needs to be done is to break our addiction to the military/prison industrial complex and start spending the country’s resources on things that will actually help and improve society.
You’d think there’d be a primary article about Miss Hawaii’s finish.
I really loved Ms. DC’s response to Define ‘confidently beautiful’ All I heard was I this I that, good response LT!
It is all an embarrassing shibai hon.
And you know it’s embarrasing shibai, because that’s what you embody in your Star-Ad comments persona, right, hon?
What’s,embarrassing is that you are not real, not a female, not native, but rather a fafa troll…
I see a lot of other people are tired of Allie’s comments. When is she going back to where she came from?
Hey Kids, give allie a break. She means well. Furthermore, we in Hawaii are nicer to each other and others than any people or place on earth! Don’t let that unique qualities disappear from our Hawaii!
Miss Hawaii did an amazing job throughout the pageant. Kudos to her the reflecting so well upon the people of our state. In Miss California’s defense, she was under a tremendous amount of pressure and obviously isn’t very well-versed the politically correct answer to that question. She sure is cute though.
If this pageant is based on beauty and grace Miss Hawaii got robbed. DC resembles another Mrs Obama.
And that’s wrong? Careful your racist views are showing.
It’s about beauty not race. Take your pick. Georgia or Hawaii.
Miss Hawaii was unparalleled to all of the contestants on being the best in grace, beauty and intelligence! We weren’t robbed, we showed the world Hawaii the epitome of a woman of all women!
Ms Hawaii’s great snswer to a stupid leading gotcha question.
Great answer, indeed. Totally unfair, too, that she gets that question (answer either way, and you make enemies of half the audience) and Miss DC gets a total softball that’s made to get her cheers when she answers.
I would respond “In Hawaii, we don’t think its anybody’s who we plan to vote for!”
It’s astonishing that these contest still exist, that women still enter them, and that anybody watches them.
Ms. Barber isn’t that good looking and it has nothing to do with her race.
Thank you! She was physically not attractive period, no matter what race.
She’s hot! I don’t care if she can count to 3.
Best post ever!
If these contests continue better start screening the stupid questions that crop up,