NEWLY CROWNED MISS AMERICA GIVES LUXE LIFE HER FIRST INTERVIEW
Newly-crowned Miss America, 19-year-old Kirsten Haglund flew to New York last night and spends the first day of her year-long reign with 16-hours of round-the-clock TV appearances.
Kirsten spent a farewell evening with her grandmother, Iora Hunt, who competed as Miss Michigan in the 1944 Atlantic City pageant, and her parents before packing for her 12 months away from home. She battled bad weather air-traffic delays here yesterday in Vegas because of heavy west coast rains and east coast ice-storms, but pre-dawn today she was on CNN Headline News with pageant judge Robin Meade for three–hours. By the time she wraps tonight on CNBC’s 10 p.m. Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, she will also have appeared on Live! With Regis and Kelly and ABC News.
I was privileged to meet with Kirsten both the night before the pageant at the Evening of Dreams private gala which I emceed and again exclusively backstage after her debut press conference in the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.
Incidentally, now former Miss America, 2007 winner Lauren Nelson actually predicted to me 72-hours before the pageant results that she thought Kirsten would go all the way and win!
(CLICK HERE for our minute-by-minute coverage from the pageant ,which we posted Saturday night seconds after she was crowned by Lauren.)
Only 19, Kirsten was the youngest contestant in the pageant. She is an extraordinary, well-spoken statuesque beauty with confidence, dignity and poise. She won a $50,000 scholarship to continue her university education after her yearlong reign.
First runner-up was Miss Indiana, Nicole Rash who won a $25,0000 scholarship and 2nd runner-up was Miss Washington, Elyse Umemoto who won a $20,000 scholarship.
Although she admits to waiting in line past midnight for four Harry Potter book releases, she wants eventually to pursue a career on Broadway.
“I hope we get a couple of hours this coming week to see a Broadway show—it’ll be my first visit there,” she confided.
Kirsten, who sang “Over The Rainbow” at the pageant, has performed as a soloist with a ballet theater in Edinburgh, Scotland. She also admitted she’d battled a serious eating disorder as a teenager.
“It was a defining moment in my life. I made my own decision to recover, and as part of my work this coming year I want to raise awareness of eating disorders.”
She did, however, accept a dessert platter of dark chocolate confections from the chefs at Planet Hollywood and a giant PINK’s hotdog with mustard!!!
As we chatted and posed privately for our exclusive photos, Kirsten’s cell-phone rang and it was KayeLani Rae Rafko, the previous Miss Michigan who last won Miss America 20-years-ago in 1988!
“She gave me a lot of advice,” Kirsten told me. “She even gave me thumbs-up approval on the gown I finally selected. I was going for something shorter but KayeLani thought this revealing silver shimmering sequined dress was the way to go.”
(Her black bikini and sexy strut also won raves during the swimsuit provocative poses!)
“I love KayeLani —she is an incredible woman and was an incredible Miss America and I wish she could have been here for this. I have met her; she has been one of my role models. Many contestants have a wardrobe viewing and she was able to MC mine. She is hilarious and tells great stories. She said my first evening gown came too short so she had to bend her knees and show me how to perfect my walk across the stage. She has been an incredible role model and I love her. My friend, Larry in Farmington Hills, Michigan where I live, made the gown. It was an adventure choosing it. I wasn’t even meant to have it. I walked into the dress store and Larry’s sister said, ‘try this on, it looks like a Kleenex, I want to see it on.’ So I tried it on and I fell in love with it.”
Backstage, Kirsten also posed with Miss Outstanding Teen America, Caitlin Brunnell—her father is with the NFL’s Washington Redskins.
Kirsten was also presented with a signature Miss America necklace from Ann Hand jewelry by Ms. America 1964, Donna Axum Whitworth, who had worn it herself to the pageant earlier!
Kirsten attends the University of Cincinnati where she is on the Dean’s List and was named a Cincinnati Century Scholar as a member of the National Honor Society.
“I love books and academia and school,” she said. “My ambition is for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in musical theatre and then to go onto Broadway. My mother, a nurse and church leader, is my role model for faith, character and love, and that’s going to really serve me well for the next year.”
She will now travel some 20,000 miles each month acting as the official national ambassador for the Children’s Miracle Network at fundraisers also raising scholarships for the Miss America Organization.
She admitted to me she was shaking and sweating when she was named among the five finalists before her name was called as the new Miss America: “My knees were shaking for sure, and I am usually not a knee shaker. I have been watching Miss America since I was a young girl and I never thought I would be here. I have a picture at my fireplace with a Miss America banner holding an enormous bouquet of roses and a crown on my head. That was pretend, but when it happens for real you simply cannot believe it. I was sweating and wondering if the crown was going to fall off my head. I was in absolute disbelief—I still am, but simultaneously I am filled with gratitude.”
I asked Kirsten if, during the preliminaries, she had first begun to feel she’d wind up as the winner.
“I don’t think there was one specific moment, but I just get this feeling—being a performer onstage and you walk out and it is the first time that light shines on you, that is an incredible feeling. I am someone who loves being outdoors and that is like the sun, I love to be onstage so every time I walk out there I say, ‘I am giving it up, I give it up to God,’ and just that light—I can’t describe it. I feel if this is meant to be it will be. I actually came out crying from the judges’ interview sessions. I was so happy. You are feeling so many different things during the week. I was so happy it was done, but it also felt wonderful. I did. I felt like a different person. There are camera and lights, wonderful judges that we had, but yes, I did feel like I nailed it, I just hoped it would hold out for the rest of the week—and it did!”
Here are Kirsten’s other comments as the new Miss America: “This entire night is for America and for my family. I can’t even believe this happened, but one of the things that makes this so special is that my grandmother was Miss Michigan in 1944 and she went onto Miss America—so my involvement in this program has really come from a love of what it stands for, a love of the scholarship, of the service, and of the glamour. This is America. When my grandmother went to Miss America in 1944, it was about patriotism, it was about the troops, supporting everything that we loved about our country, and that is what this program is going to be again. Everything that we love about girls, we are going to be strong, we are going to be powerful and I cannot wait to be Miss America.
“I am thrilled with the direction that Miss America is going to go this year. I cannot wait to start. I am also thrilled to be the national goodwill ambassador for Children’s Miracle Network—what a blessing. I have already been able to do it in Michigan as we have four Children’s Miracle Hospitals in our state. Every experience has been a wonder. Lauren, (Miss America 2007) was speaking about how she loved those experiences—how rewarding it was for her—and that she received so much from it. That is how I feel as I begin this journey and go to New York! I am so excited. I am a musical theater major in school, so I cannot wait to drive down Broadway!”
“I am also very passionate about raising awareness of eating disorders. I chose that platform because I personally struggled with an eating disorder when I was in high school. It was mostly because of ballet and this feeling that I had to live up to a certain image of what was beautiful and successful, but Miss Michigan and Miss America have shown me that it is not just about a title; it is about being representative of all the goodness in the country, someone who is intelligent, someone who has a great character, someone that young people can look up to and for being an enigmatic and charismatic person, and that is what I cannot wait to do. I also want to encourage healthy lifestyles, encourage women to stand up for what they believe in and not just a waistline. I am very excited about that. I am also thrilled this year—it has been incredible—going out to LA, bonding with the girls, and being a part of TLC’s wonderful Miss America: Reality Check TV show. As controversial as it was, it was an incredible experience and it has done so much to catapult our pageant back to the national level of attention that it needs and deserves. Now America will see all the women that compete in this program and what they have to bring to the table and how they can change this country for the better. We have had a blast. This is a dream come true.”
“I think one of the biggest changes in the telecast was how we presented our eveningwear and swimsuit walks. The talent didn’t change, the interview process didn’t change, but I think this gave the girls an opportunity to be themselves, to lose inhibitions. They can be their youthful selves. They feel they don’t have to fit an image of what pageant girls have done for years. They feel they can go out there and strut their stuff and feel confident and sexy, and that is okay. The show was totally different this year—I was glad I wasn’t eliminated to do that lonely walk across the stage. I think it was great. It had a wonderful marketing strategy. It became a little more like American Idol, like a reality TV show. It keeps people on their seats. It is a great idea. I was happy they called my name for the talent portion, but not happy about being the first. You are rushing, the quick changes, you are out of breath. As a singer you need to feel grounded and you need to feel calm and get your breathing in order. It was nerve wracking, but I’m glad I wasn’t left to last because then I’d have been eliminated!”
Kirsten, who is a University of Michigan football fan, says she faced a tough choice for the talent portion of the pageant—undecided as to whether she would dance a ballet piece or perform an operatic segment. In the end she settled for the more pop “Over The Rainbow.”
She continued, “I have always been doing both, but for a long time I thought I only wanted to do ballet, but because of the eating disorder I began to realize I couldn’t remain entrenched in the world and be healthy. There was so much in the world I wanted to do and accomplish that I didn’t want to let that drag me down, so I chose to still dance, but not so much ballet. I am incorporating all of my passions for music and the arts, something that encourages a healthy body shape and image while still doing something I love. I did sing opera at Miss Michigan. There are so many songs to sing that it is a difficult choice—this song kept rising to the top, it is the first popular song I ever sang in public. I have been performing for a long time, whether in front of the video camera or whatever, but I went around with the local contestants and with my karaoke machine and my awful costumes and I would sing. It just felt right. As a performer you want to have a connection with what you perform because it is about communication with your audience. It is about communication because art is a universal language.”
“I am very happy to say I was the youngest contestant. I mean, coming into it, I was aware of that. Miss America needs someone young and relevant. I am very mature, but I still feel in touch. I was in high school two years ago, so I feel in touch with what young girls are feeling, the pressures they face and also what they need to look up to. I love fashion and style—what girl doesn’t. I want them to look at me on the red carpet and say, ‘look what she is wearing,’ and, ‘oh, I love her shoes,’ so they will be able to look past that and say, ‘wow, she is involved in a great cause and serving a wonderful charity. Wow, she can speak intelligently and give good meaningful interviews, she is going out to vote.’ That is how you need to get the initial interest, and I think I can do that, so I am very excited. I am going to contact the National Eating Disorders Organization—I went to their conference as Miss Michigan. They need celebrities on their panel and we are so focused on dieting and nutrition and that is very important, but we need it in a different way than just losing 200-pounds on the XYZ diet. It is about more than that. It is about loving who you are, and accepting who you are. Yes, we need to watch what we eat and live healthy lifestyles, we need to get on the move. I believe that all that goes in stride, so I am excited to promote that as my platform.”
Kirsten also revealed that the 16th “America’s Choice” finalist, Miss Utah, Jill Stevens, picked by internet voting by viewers, was her roommate during the four-week reality series.
“She was a morale booster and the most fun girl I have ever met,” Said Kirsten. “We bonded in L.A. while shooting the reality series. She is a member of the National Guard and served as a medic in Afghanistan. I am so proud of her that she was chosen and we all got onstage and did push-ups with her.
That was great. It was not planned at all. We love her. When we had to walk up three flights of stairs with our luggage and she would say, ‘this is nothing, we had to hike 12 miles through the dessert carrying three times our weight.’ She put it into perspective for us. I am very proud of her even though she was eliminated in the first go-round.”
The first Miss America, Margaret Gorman from Washington DC was chosen in 1921. Now Kirsten becomes the 87th Miss America, and next January—after an entire year on the road—she’ll be back at Planet Hollywood for the next 2009 pageant.
“It’s going to be the best year of my life,” she summed up.