A 26-year-old entrepreneur from Texas was named Miss USA, besting 50 other beauty queens for the coveted crown.
Crystle Stewart, of Missouri City, Texas, runs a party-planning and motivational speaking company, as well as modelling professionally. She says she wants to dedicate her life to international philanthropy.
PICTURE GALLERY: Miss USA 2008. Click here
“I want to talk to people about how to set a goal and achieve it,” she said after the show today.
“Because I just achieved my goal.”
Stewart edged out first runner-up Leah Laviano of Mississippi and Tiffany Andrade of New Jersey.
Miss USA 2007 Rachel Smith relinquished the crown - and the posh New York apartment that comes with it - in a show aired live by NBC with hosts Donny and Marie Osmond from the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The network co-owns the parent Miss Universe Organisation with Donald Trump.
Smith, a former Miss Tennessee USA, said she was headed to Hollywood.
Stewart was headed for the publicity circuit. She said she was eager to travel and spread her message of self-improvement to young women. She noted she was one of only a handful of black woman crowned Miss USA in the pageant’s 57-year history.
“I think the United States is coming together,” she said, citing the historic presidential candidacies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. She declined to name her preference.
“I don’t know, we’ll see. Fundamentally, I’m a Democrat,” she said.
Contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia have been in Las Vegas for nearly three weeks, rehearsing and hyping the 57th annual pageant.
Miss USA contestants are scored in three categories: swimsuit, evening gown and interview.
The panel of judges included Heather Mills, model and former wife of Paul McCartney; comedian Rob Schneider; Olympic gold-medal swimmer Amanda Beard; and Christian Siriano, winner of Bravo’s fashion reality series, Project Runway.
LAS VEGAS
AP