Dethroned Miss North Carolina USA Brittany Boltinhouse is taking her fight from the pageant stage to the courtroom, accusing organizers of orchestrating a smear campaign to destroy her reputation and silence her conservative voice.
According to the New York Post, Boltinhouse has filed a defamation lawsuit against A-Blaize Productions, the producers of the Miss North Carolina USA pageant, and Miss USA president Thom Brodeur, alleging they maliciously coordinat[ed] to publish a false public narrative portraying [her] as a racist, homophobe, and intolerable bigot to be shunned from public life. The complaint, filed Sunday on the eve of the Miss USA competition in Miami, contends that pageant officials deliberately misled the public about why she was stripped of her crown and used her political and religious beliefs as a pretext to oust her.
Boltinhouse, 27, was dethroned on Aug. 5, barely five weeks after winning the Miss North Carolina USA title, following an expos highlighting social media posts from 2017 to 2019 that included the N-word. The lawsuit argues that these years-old posts, made when she was a teenager and young adult, only became an issue after she emerged as a visible, outspoken conservative Christian in a cultural environment increasingly hostile to such views.
Her attorneys insist that the controversy over her social media history was weaponized after her victory, not before. Nearly a decade later when Brittanys immigrant inspired work ethic was propelling her to the American dream, [the pageant organizers] would conspire to use these innocuous posts and their self-evident ubiquitous use of the popular slang term na to falsely smear Brittany as a racist, homophobe, transphobe, and bigot, they said.
The lawsuit bluntly alleges that ideological bias, not moral outrage, drove the decision to remove her. [Pageant organizers] hid from the public the real reason they dethroned Brittany: she is a conservative Christian.
Boltinhouse has long maintained that her political and religious convictions were the true target, and the new filing doubles down on that claim. She attended President Donald Trumps speech on the National Mall on Jan. 6, 2021, voiced support for Andrew and Tristan Tate, publicly objected to President Bidens 2024 Transgender Day of Visibility proclamation, and urged voters to back Trump on the eve of the November 2024 election.
Her legal team argues that these positions, all squarely within the bounds of mainstream conservative thought, were twisted into a character indictment. They contend that pageant officials used her beliefs to falsely portray and defame her as a racist, homophobe, transphobe, and a bigot who should be shunned from public life.
The suit further claims that organizers attempted to coerce Boltinhouse into signing a scripted confession to validate their narrative. The pre-prepared statement read, Over the past several days, I have been forced to confront parts of my past that I am not proud of, and went on to reference a fight from my teenage years and social media posts I made as a young adult for which she would take full responsibility.
The draft continued with a sweeping apology: Those words and actions were mine, and I take full responsibility for them. I do not seek to minimize them or make excuses for them. To those who were hurt or disappointed by my past words or actions, I offer my sincere apology. This experience has been painful, but it has also been humbling. Boltinhouse refused to endorse the statement, viewing it as a forced confession designed to legitimize her removal and appease online outrage.
Recorded conversations cited in the lawsuit suggest that the decision to dethrone her was based on a broad, subjective assessment rather than a single infraction. Brittany, you are being dethroned, or you have been dethroned because of the totality of every single thing altogether, co-director Nic Blaize allegedly told her in an Aug. 5 call, according to a transcript referenced in the filing.
The same conversations indicate that pressure may have come from higher levels within the Miss USA organization. The national office told us to make a statement, Blaize said when asked why an online statement was released. They told us too that we had to make a statement.
A-Blaize Productions has publicly rejected the claim that Boltinhouses beliefs played any role in her removal. A Blaize Productions decision was not based on Brittany Boltinhouses political views, religious beliefs, or protected personal viewpoints. Our organization includes people from various backgrounds, political views, personal beliefs and values. We welcome and celebrate that, a spokesperson told The Post.
The company insists that its actions were grounded in standards of conduct, not ideology. The decision followed a careful review of the totality of information that came to our attention, including previously undisclosed conduct and public content spanning multiple years that was inconsistent with the standards and responsibilities expected of a Miss North Carolina USA titleholder under the agreements governing the position.
Boltinhouse is seeking financial compensation for the damage she says has been done to her reputation and career, while her former crown has already been passed to Myla Hadley. As the lawsuit moves forward and A-Blaize Productions has not responded in court, the case is poised to test whether a conservative Christian titleholder can be stripped of her position over old social media posts without accountability for what she alleges is ideological discrimination masquerading as moral enforcement.
Login