Powell is said being anxious and spacing out during 2013 Miss USA Q and A session which prompted her to improvise her answer about salary inequality between men and women.
- Jun 18, 2013
AceShowbiz - Miss Connecticut Erin Brady is crowned as the winner of 2013 Miss USA. However, Miss Utah Marissa Powell stole the spotlight from the winner for the wrong reason as stories of her botched response at the pageant's question and answer session became headlines of the media. Following Powell's cringe-worthy statement to a question about different salary between men and women, the third runner-up of the beauty pageant apparently blamed anxiousness for her less-than-satisfying answer.
According to TMZ, Powell told her friends that she was anxious and spacing out during the interview segment. Therefore, she did not really hear the question. Instead of asking the judge to repeat the question, however, she decided to improvise and later she stumbled on her words.
At the Las Vegas event held on Sunday, June 16, celebrity judge NeNe Leakes asked 21-year-old Powell, "A recent report shows that in 40 percent of American families with children, women are the primary earners, yet they continue to earn less than men. What does this say about society?"
"I think we can relate this back to education and how we are continuing to try to strive to," she said, pausing briefly and flashing a nervous smile before she continued saying, "figure out how to create jobs right now." She added, "That is the biggest problem, and I think especially the men are seen as the leaders of this, and so we need to try to figure out how to create education better so that we can solve this problem. Thank you."
The pageant's co-owner Donald Trump took to Twitter to scold haters as videos of the segment went viral. "Trending story on Miss Utah is very unfair. She simply lost her train of thought - could happen to anyone!" he wrote. "Like it or not, haters and losers, everybody is talking about Miss U.S.A. and Miss Utah. By the way she is a fine young woman - unfair to her," he wrote again a few hours later.
