Beauty Contests

January 30, 2024

‘Ballerina Farm’ Gave Birth Two Weeks Ago. Now It’s Time For a Beauty Pageant.

“I am still bleeding a little,” Hannah Neeleman said. She was sitting in front of a glowing ring light in a Las Vegas hotel room, cradling […]
March 23, 2023

Marisol Malaret, First Puerto Rican Miss Universe, Dies at 73

Edging out Miss USA, Ms. Malaret — who was also the first winner from the Caribbean — brokered her fame to become a television host and […]
January 17, 2023

Miss Universe Succumbs to Gravity

Can a beauty pageant become a seminar on global politics and commerce? Out of all beauty pageants, Miss Universe, which began in 1952, makes the boldest […]
November 27, 2022

Beauty Over Brains: Japan’s Skin-Deep University Pageants

The contests reflect a culture that often judges women by their appearance and slots them into rigid, gender-defined roles. Yuki Iozumi was fretting about how her […]
October 29, 2021

Jo-Carroll Dennison, Miss America During World War II, Dies at 97

The oldest surviving former Miss America, she was among the first to object to wearing a swimsuit during her reign. Jo-Carroll Dennison spent a rootless childhood […]
June 14, 2021

What Does It Mean to Be Crowned ‘Miss Juneteenth’?

In the month of June, as celebrations to commemorate the Juneteenth holiday begin, dozens of Black girls and women across the country will be competing for […]
August 31, 2020

What’s It Like to Live With a Beauty Queen? Ask Miss Universe, She Rooms With Miss USA

When Zozibini Tunzi moved into the Midtown apartment where Cheslie Kryst was living last December, some roommate tension might have been expected. Ms. Tunzi — at […]
July 4, 2020

‘I Am Here to Prove You Wrong’

The Look ‘I Am Here to Prove You Wrong’ At Miss Muslimah USA, a pageant for young Muslim women, the complexity of modesty is on full […]
February 20, 2020

The Agriculture Queens of Louisiana

This year in Louisiana, more than 120 pageant queens will be crowned in honor of crops and commodities, as they have been for some 70 years. […]
December 6, 2019

How Miss USA Spends Her Sundays

Before Cheslie Kryst was crowned Miss USA in May, she was a lawyer in Charlotte, N.C. In keeping with pageant rules, she moved to Manhattan. Although […]