Former Miss North Carolina USA Brittany Boltinhouse is suing pageant officials for defamation after she was stripped of her crown over past social media posts containing the n-word.
Boltinhouse, who was crowned in June and dethroned in early August, isn’t fighting to regain her title. Instead, she filed a civil lawsuit on August 23 in Duplin County Superior Court seeking financial damages over an alleged smear campaign.
The lawsuit, according to multiple reports, names the Miss USA Organization and its CEO, Thom Brodeur, as defendants. It arrives as the national pageant kicks off in Miami, where Black runner-up Myla Hadley is competing in her place.
The Bizarre Beyoncé Connection
According to TMZ, the filing reportedly opens with lyrics from Beyoncé’s “Heated,” which includes the same slur.
“Whole lotta, yeah, money, not a lot of patience. Whole lotta n— been waiting. They want some time on it, now I wanna flaunt it. Panty and a bra, we can get involved, boy…”
The suit alleges that the Miss USA Organization booted Boltinhouse over her conservative religious and political views, using her past social media posts as a pretext.
In the complaint, Boltinhouse owns up to past posts from 2017 to 2019 that used the n-word. But her suit argues that pageant organizers weaponized those posts to smear her as a “racist, homophobe, transphobe, and intolerable bigot” — a claim her legal team says is backed by audio recordings of state pageant officials.
The complaint reportedly detailed those conversations, claiming officials expressed concern over public outcry if she continued her affiliation with the organization.
It further claims pageant leaders raised concerns over her social media activity supporting political figures and commentators — including Donald Trump (who owned Miss USA from 1996 to 2015), Charlie Kirk, and Andrew and Tristan Tate.
‘Branded with a Scarlet Letter’
Boltinhouse alleges that pageant officials pressured her to sign an apology statement that she felt unfairly characterized her as bigoted. When she refused, she claims organizers falsely reported to the public that she had taken accountability and issued an apology.
In a public statement, her attorney Patrick M. Mincey likened her treatment to that of Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter. “Brittany Boltinhouse was not merely stripped of a title. She was publicly branded with a scarlet letter, accused of some of the most despicable accusations that can be lodged against another person in modern society,” he said.
Co-counsel Stephen Bell added, “While defendants enjoy a certain level of discretion to crown and remove titleholders, they cannot remove a titleholder for political reasons and then defame that titleholder to the public to hide their true motivations.”
Prior to the lawsuit, Brodeur, who oversees the Miss USA organization, maintained in an official August 5 statement that the dethronement was executed in consultation with Boltinhouse and her state directors over conduct that breached pageant standards.
Boltinhouse is seeking monetary compensation for purported damage to her reputation, emotional suffering, and lost professional opportunities.
Pageant organizers have not formally responded to this newly filed lawsuit.
