The ousted Miss USA president criticizes contestants in the 2022 pageant for accusing her of rigging the competition in favor of Miss Texas, as revealed in a new documentary.
Crystle Stewart, 42, who lost her position due to the accusations, slams the beauty queens for claiming she preselected R’Bonney Gabriel as the winner.
Stewart, who held her position for three years before being permanently removed, sits down for her first interview regarding the 2022 scandal in the documentary produced by The New York Times and FX. She addresses the claims made by multiple contestants.
“I want to tell them that I actually commend them for using their voice and coming together,” says Stewart, the 2008 Miss Texas winner. Throughout the interview, she often glances towards her off-camera lawyer, Nathan Sheffield. “It shows that if we unify and work together, how it can amplify your voice,” she continues, “but they used it for the wrong reason.”
After the 2022 pageant, contestants expressed on social media that the competition was rigged in favor of R’Bonney Gabriel, the then-Miss Texas who later won Miss Universe.
“My whole family came and they were telling me: ‘So-and-so said, you know, apparently it’s going to go to Texas,’” says Miss DC Faith Porter in an interview with How to Fix a Pageant filmmakers. “I remember saying: ‘Everyone really likes her in the staff, but I don’t know if they would crown her because the directors are going to riot.’”
Contestants claimed that Gabriel received favored treatment, including a dedicated hair and makeup team. Throughout the pageant week, rumors circulated that the Texas-native and fashion designer would be crowned.
Stewart denies any favoritism or rigging, asserting that she was “not at all” involved in selecting the winner. An independent investigation conducted by Holland & Knight, which did not publicly release its findings, found no evidence of rigging.
However, documents provided by Stewart to the filmmakers indicate that she was alerted to concerns about favoritism on September 8, 2022, approximately a month before Gabriel was crowned as the winner.
Three unidentified state directors informed the filmmakers about a meeting held to address their concerns about Gabriel’s treatment, but the outcome of the meeting was not disclosed.
However, Stewart asserts that she was taken by surprise by the significant allegations made by some contestants, notably Miss Montana Heather Lee O’Keefe, who was the most vocal.
“After the winner was chosen, everything seemed fine, and then I got a phone call about the video at Nizuc [Spa].”
Nizuc, a national sponsor, had released an ad featuring Gabriel shortly after her crowning. Contestants are prohibited from collaborating with national sponsors prior to being crowned Miss USA. The ad generated backlash from many contestants, who accused pageant officials of preselecting Gabriel and allowing her to film the video in advance.
Gabriel, who has only spoken once about the scandal and did not attend the 2023 competition, claimed that she was working with MIA Beaute, a state sponsor, and had visited the salon at Nizuc in Mexico. In an emailed statement to The Post at the time, Gabriel insisted that the contest was not “rigged.”
Almost a year later, Stewart still questions how the scandal exploded to such proportions. She remarks to the documentarians, “How did we find ourselves here? I didn’t know it would blow up the way that it did.”
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