The Miss USA pageant disqualified all the contestants who had appeared in racy photos —a la Carrie Prejean— it would probably be left with no contestants.
The pageant has come under fire for releasing black and white publicity photos of barely clad contestants.
Fox News deems Miss Virginia and Miss Kansas "topless," though they are wearing (unbuttoned) shirts.
At least one state director got phone calls from contestants who "were concerned, knowing that they had to participate in order to be competitive," she says, but another says the photos are just plain "hot."
A rep for the organization says the sexy shoot was designed to break the "pageant princess" stereotype and project a "hot, yet tasteful" image.
Miss USA 2010, the 59th edition of the Miss USA pageant, will be held at the Theatre for the Performing Arts in Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 16, 2010. The winner will represent the United States in the Miss Universe 2010 competition. Miss USA 2009, Kristen Dalton from North Carolina, will crown her successor at the end of this event. The 50 states and the District of Columbia will compete for the prestigious title and the pageant will broadcast live on NBC.
The pageant will be co-hosted by Australian celebrity chef Curtis Stone and Today show correspondent Natalie Morales.[2] Colour commentary will be provided by Joan and Melissa Rivers.[2] Pop rock band Boys Like Girls will perform during the swimsuit competition and country music star Trace Adkins will perform during the evening gown competition.[2] Stone, Adkins and Rivers have all appeared on Donald Trump's television show Celebrity Apprentice.
Kristen Dalton and Chet Buchanan are scheduled to host the Miss USA 2010 Presentation Show. [3]For the first time since Miss Universe did last year, the Miss USA 2010 Preliminary Competition will be live webcast via Ustream (on www.missusa.com) in Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino on May 12, 2010.
The competition was broadcast in High Definition for the third time in history.
Delegates representing the fifty states plus the District of Columbia competed in the pageant, and arrived in Las Vegas on May 3.
Pageants were held from June 2009 to January 2010 to select the representative for each state. During the final show on May 16, the fifteen delegates with the highest average score from the preliminary competition were announced. The top fifteen competed in the swimsuit competition. The top ten delegates from swimsuit competed in evening gown. The top five delegates from the evening gown competition (not averaged composite scores from both competitions) competed in the final question round to determine the winner. The judges' composite score was shown after each round of competition for only the third time since 2002.