Miss America Offers Advice to Clinton and Trump as Pageant’s Political Slant Prompts Outrage

The Miss America 2017 competition wrapped up on Sunday night in Atlantic City, N.J., crowning the graceful Savvy Shields, a 21-year-old art major from Arkansas. But with pageants often comes drama — and online outrage — as it has this year, over details from the solemn Sept. 11 date it took place on to, more cattily, Miss Michigan’s appearance.

One of the main sticking points in this election year, however, appears to be that contestants were asked about politics during the final question portion of the evening.

The hubbub stems from three questions posed to final contestants by the celebrity judges, one of which went to Shields and was posed by Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas. “Hillary Rodham Clinton. What do you think?” Douglas asked.

Shields laughed in response and then gave a decidedly nonanswer, saying, in part, “If you’re trying to be leader of the free world, everything you say and do matters, and all of your actions are held to a higher standard. And unfortunately, the media does love to sensationalize everything, and it’s hard to tell what is truth and what is truly scandal … both of these candidates have done a great job in competing…” (During a postbroadcast press conference, Shields added, “What I want both candidates to focus on is compromise.”)

Previously, actress Laura Marano had asked Miss New York, Camille Sims, “Donald J. Trump. What do you think of him? You have 20 seconds — go.” In response, Sims gave what was arguably the strongest answer of the evening: “I think that he’s a bright reminder of how our country needs to come together. If you don’t agree with his message, then it’s time to decide where you stand in this debate. As Americans, we need to make sure that we come together, represent what it means to be American — which is celebrating all people from all backgrounds whether you’re an immigrant or a Native American or an African-American or an Asian-American.”

Singer Ciara, meanwhile, asked Miss Maryland Hannah Brewer — who sang “God Bless America” while wearing a blue taffeta gown for the evening’s talent portion — how she would grade the media’s coverage of the election so far. Brewer answered like a politician. “I think it’s been very equal to both parties,” she said. “I think both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have received a lot of criticism for the way that they’re going about this campaign, and I think it’s absolutely ridiculous. I think that we need to support both of these people. They are trying to make our country a better place, and I support them both.”

Yahoo Beauty has reached out to the Miss America organization to learn if any rules or unwritten codes of conduct were broken with the political questions, and we will update as soon as we hear back.

The controversy, though, echoes one that raged following the Miss USA pageant — the unrelated, formerly Trump-owned pageant that took place in June. That time, however, the question, posed to Miss Hawaii, Chelsea Hardin, by Laura Brown, was more pointed.

“If the election were held tomorrow, would you vote Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump for president, and why would you chose one over the other?” asked Brown — although officials later noted that the question was written by the Miss USA organization. The audience erupted with boos, and Hardin gave a nonanswer, saying, “We need a president to push for what is right and push for what America really needs.”

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