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Miss USA contestant Juliana Morehouse on being the 1st married woman allowed in the competition: 'It's a really positive message'
It's part of a wave of changes coming to the world of beauty pageants.
[as originally published on yahoo.com]
When newlywed and reigning Miss Maine USA Juliana Morehouse competes Friday in this year's Miss USA pageant, she will be doing what no other contestant has done before. It's all thanks to a change in the rules made last year that allows married women to be part of the competition.
"I was relieved and I was excited, because it was like finally these two things that I really want aren't competing with each other anymore. I could have both," Morehouse tells Yahoo Entertainment. "And that was a really gratifying feeling for me."
Morehouse was engaged but, as as she says contestants regularly do, she was putting the wedding off until after the Miss Maine pageant. Because if she won eligibility for Miss USA, she wanted to continue on. So she was planning for the nuptials, but with the understanding that everything would be postponed if she won.
When she heard that her pageant dreams could come true even after she walked down the aisle, she and fiancé Taylor Reed Locklear, whom she'd dated since she was 17, became husband and wife. She wore a light-up tiara and her sash at the April reception.
Another major change for the pageant world is on the way. Officials behind Miss Universe, which has the same owner as Miss USA, announced this month that it would abolish age limits there, beginning in 2024.
All of this is a big deal because pageants have, traditionally, not been very inclusive.
Miss USA, which was first held in 1952 and has produced celebrities such as Halle Berry, Olivia Culpo and Ali Landry, also is overcoming a year of scandal, after multiple contestants alleged that the 2022 contest was rigged. An investigation found the allegations to be false, per WWD. The Washington Post reports that the pageant had been under the leadership of the company Miss Brands from 2020 to 2022, but it has now been returned to Miss Universe.
Laylah Rose, the fashion designer and member of the U.S. National Committee for United Nations Women, took over as president of Miss USA in August. She tells Yahoo Entertainment that she's in favor of the changes the Miss Universe Organization is making under Anne Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip, who purchased it last October. Jakrajutatip, the CEO of a media company and the host of Project Runway in in her native Thailand, is also a transgender activist who's transgender herself.
Rose tells Yahoo: "I think today that we have just pushed so far to be where we are and we worked so hard to be where we are, that it just boils down to not limiting females on any level."
She says that she doesn't know why the decision was ever made to limit who could compete, but she wholeheartedly supports the change… READ MORE