This page will be providing live blogging for the 2011 Miss USA pageant on June 19th. The show starts at 9 p.m. Eastern and airs on NBC. Check here for available live results, make your predictions, and share in the 2011 Miss USA fun.
Donald Trump owns the organization that runs this pageant and the Miss Universe pageant. Of course, the winner here (not to be confused with Miss America) will also compete in the 2011 Miss Universe pageant later in the year.
Hosts for this event are Giuliana Rancic and Andy Cohen. Thankfully, at least we won’t have to endure Bret Michaels, who sexed up Miss Universe last time and bragged about wanting to party all night with the girls.
Judges for Miss USA 2011 are Tyson Chandler, Rocco DiSpirito, Mariel Hemingway, Penn Jillette, Lil John and Suzi Weiss-Fischmann.
This pageant is live from Las Vegas. However, you can get information on the preliminary round over at NBC.com (see Resources below).
Hang out here now and post your thoughts and Miss USA predictions both before and during the pageant, get results and tell us whether you agree with who won.
I will provide as much information as possible about the event as it takes place.
For the first time ever, there was also voting for this event, but it is now over for this year. Votes helped to determine who made the next round of the competition (the semifinals), but the semifinal announcements will not be made until the live broadcast. As far as I can see from the voting instructions, public votes do not appear to influence the semifinals and finals judging at all. That is probably a good thing for something like the Miss USA pageant since the judges have more time to see who may be a good representative for the organization when they are there in person for the preliminary rounds.
Stay tuned here for all your Miss USA 2011 updates, predictions and results.
Kelly Osbourne and Susie Castillo are providing analysis on the contestants.
The state pageant winners are now introducing themselves.
They are teasing new changes to the competition (maybe this is different than the voting that is already finished?).
The 15 semifinalists are about to announced. Here they are:
Southeast:
Miss Georgia (Kaylin Reque)
Miss Tennessee (Ashley Durham)
Miss South Carolina (Courtney Hope Turner)
Miss Alabama (Madeline Mitchell)
Miss Florida (Lissette Garcia)
Southwest:
Miss Arizona (Brittany Dawn Brannon)
Miss Texas (Ana Rodriguez)
Northeast:
Miss Maine (Ashley-Lynn Marble)
Miss New York (Amber Marie Collins)
Miss Maryland (Allyn Rose)
West:
Miss Utah (Jamie Lynn Crandall)
Miss Hawaii (Angela Byrd)
Miss California (Alyssa Campanella)
Midwest:
Miss Indiana (Jillian Wunderlich)
Miss Missouri (Hope Driskill)
Here is how the voting changed the results. Miss New Mexico got the most votes of all, which added her to the Top 15 to make a Top 16. But they did not announce whether she was in the original Top 15.
A clip of Halle Berry was shown. She finished as the runner up in the Miss USA pageant.
After the break, the hosts introduce the judges. They say only the judges will determine the winner. In addition to the ones listed above, Caroline Manzo, Marcus Allen and Zuleyka Rivera are also judges.
Rima Fakih (pizza girl), the 2010 Miss USA, comes out next to introduce the former Miss USA’s. They are seated in the audience but don’t do anything.
The swimsuit competition is up next.
Early Prediction: Going out on a limb here, but Texas looks to be a favorite to win this pageant. Missouri is also one to watch if she can make it to the last round.
Go to the NBC.com site below to vote along with the other fans. However, your votes will not count along with the judges. This is just for comparison purposes.
The Swimsuit Competition (Quarterfinals):
Numbers are what the voting audience on the website registered:
Miss Georgia
Miss Arizona
Miss Maine (1st so far)
Miss Utah (last at this point)
Miss Tennessee (now 1st so far)
Miss Indiana (2nd behind TN so far)
Miss Texas (1st so far)
Miss South Carolina (2nd behind TX so far)
Miss Alabama (4th so far)
Miss New York (1st so far)
Miss Hawaii (5th so far)
Miss Florida (10th so far) people probably thought she was too skinny
Miss Missouri (3rd so far)
Miss California (4th in voting so far)
Miss Maryland (last in voting so far)
Miss New Mexico (1st among fan voting in the swimsuit)
The fans voted for these Top 5:
1. New Mexico
2. New York
3. Texas
4. Missouri
5. California
The semifinals will be announced after the break. This will be based strictly on the judges’ scores, not the fan scores.
Only the judges’ swimsuit scores count, but remember that the judges typically already have their favorites by this point.
Maine
Tennessee
Texas
South Carolina
Alabama
Hawaii
California
Maryland
Judge voting was quite different than the fan votes. Only Texas and California made the semifinals (evening gown competition) from the fans’ Top 5.
Next up is the evening gown portion of the contest. Here is where I think the judges probably do have their favorites already and are just going to solidify that with biased voting in the remaining rounds. I sort of feel like a different set of judges should score each round of the competition.
Eric Turner and Tinie Tempah are performing for this round.
Maine (1st so far in fan voting)
Tennessee (now 1st so far in voting)
Texas (2nd so far in voting)
South Carolina (1st so far in voting)
Alabama (4th so far in voting)
Hawaii
California (1st so far in voting)
Maryland (1st in voting with the public on this round)
Here was the final fan voting for the semifinals (evening gown) stage of the 2011 Miss USA pageant:
1. Maryland
2. California
3. South Carolina
4. Tennessee
5. Texas
6. Alabama
7. Hawaii
8. Maine
Once again, this has no effect on the actual judges’ voting. But since this is technologically possible now, I’d like to see pageants moving in the direction of fan voting or at least giving more weight to fan voting (only one pick in the top 16 was kind of a joke).
Here are the actual 4 finalists, based on the judge voting in the semifinals:
Alabama
Texas
Tennessee
California
Maine, Hawaii ,Maryland and South Carolina are out.
Time for some informal questions.
Alabama gave a pretty cheesy and generic answer about inspiring students as a future educator.
Texas fell down a flight of stairs at her first pageant. She talked about that. This was also really generic but showed more personality than Alabama.
Tennessee spent a summer in Paris. She gave a really boring answer about applying for and going to Paris.
California collects history books. This was geeky, but it’s kind of interesting seeing a total hottie talk about reading.
Up next is the actual final round with the final question.
California is up first. Caroline Manzo asks her about legalizing marijuana. She says she is for medical marijuana but doesn’t otherwise support legalization. This was a decent answer for sure.
Tennessee is up next. Rocco asks her about the pastor that burned the Quran. She says that burning the American flag or a religious document should not be protected. This showed a lack of knowledge of free speech and didn’t seem to really answer the real legal question.
Texas gets Mariel Hemingway. She has to give advice to women like the wife of Anthony Weiner. This was a pretty poor answer here with the generic “be positive” in the mix. This was my pick from the beginning, but I just hated her generic answer.
Alabama is asked by Tyson Chandler about bullying. She thinks a bully should be prosecuted when a victim commits suicide.
I’d say California gave the best answer to the final question. California or Texas look to be the winner here.
There is now a final walk in the evening gown. Here were the public votes:
1. Texas
2. Tennessee
3. Alabama
4. California
Funny thing is, California was 2nd overall in the fan voting in the evening gown before, showing how volatile these scores can be at times (for the same evening gown because they all wore the same one).
Here are the final results:
Winner and Miss USA 2011: Miss California Alyssa Campanella
Runner Up: Miss Tennessee
Second Runner Up: Miss Alabama
Third Runner Up: Miss Texas (this got a lot of boos)
The winner will compete for Miss Universe 2011 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in September.
Resources:
NBC.com 2011 Miss USA Page
