AceShowbiz -

It was an apology tour, instead of a victory lap, for the new Miss Teen USA Karlie Hay. The pageant beauty was forced to address the offensive racial term she repeatedly used on her Twitter in the past during her first TV interview on "Good Morning America" with George Stephanopoulos.

"I am very sorry," she said. "It's embarrassing. It's something I'm ashamed of. I've grown up from that 15-year-old girl who used that type of language. It's never acceptable and now I know how hurtful it is, and it hurts me to know that at one point in my life, I used that language. I said that. It's not me."

"At that age, I was being a follower," the 18-year-old Texan girl explained on the ABC morning show. "I was trying to fit in with my friends. The word was thrown around in the music I listened to, with the friends I hung out with, and I had no guidance. So, it was kind of a careless mistake."

"When the tweet got brought back up, I was just, like, kind of, like, embarrassed, ashamed and just amazed that I actually at one point in my life thought it was OK to use that word, because it's never OK," she added. "It's not an excuse - there is no excuse to say that word at all."

Hay defended herself for keeping the crown. "I've grown from then and I've blossomed into the person I am today," she insisted, saying she wanted to use her platform to prevent others from making the same mistake. "And I think that I can turn this message into a positive message, because there are people that use this word, and it's unacceptable. Ever."

"I've learned that, you know, through every obstacle there's something positive that can come out of it, and I can use my title to do great things. And hopefully people learn from my mistakes, because it is a big mistake. It's something I'm embarrassed about, something that will stick with me and definitely has affected me," she continued. "I'm just going to try to learn from it and move forward."

"People go through these obstacles. I've gone through my own personal struggles, and everyone has their own personal struggles, but that doesn't give you an excuse to use this type of language or to use any bad language at all. It goes to show that it can come back and hurt you and it has definitely hurt me on the inside for ever saying it. It has hurt other people as well."