Miss USA Pageant Releases Ultra-Racy Photos

If 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 sprawled on a bed in provocative poses . Fox News even 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. (For more opinions on whether this is classy or crass, click here.) To see all the photos, click here.
(More Miss USA stories.)