Now that NBC and Univision have both dropped the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageant thanks to its ties with Donald Trump, will the show still go on? The Miss Universe Organization said Monday that it will still stage the 2015 Miss USA pageant on July 12, even though no one will get to see it on TV.
“The 2015 Miss USA pageant will still take place in Baton Rouge on July 12. We are disheartened by recent events but the show will go on,” the statement reads. The Miss Universe Organization later pointed out that six Miss USA contestants are Latinas and four of them are of Mexican descent.
"While world politics and other influences will undoubtedly play a role, the pageant will always seek to transcend controversy," the organization stated. "It is unfortunate that recent events beyond our control have only served to negatively impact the women who participate in the pageant, our state directors, our sponsors and our fans. We want our supporters to know we remain committed to them and we will be conducting the pageant, regardless of the current situation."
This comes after NBC finally decided to sever ties with Tump Monday afternoon. Even though NBCUniversal co-owns the Miss Universe pageant with the Trump Organization, the network followed Univsion’s lead and pulled support after Trump’s insulting comments on Mexican immigrants during his first presidential campaign speech.
Trump later tweeted that Univision actually apologized, but Univision CEO Randy Falco said in a memo obtained by CNN that he never did so.
“We cannot be associated with insulting and intolerant speech that brands an entire community of Mexican immigrants in the U.S. as people who bring drugs, crime and rape into our country,” Falco wrote. “To the contrary, as I said in our statement, we see first-hand the work ethic, love for family, strong religious values and the important role Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans have had and will continue to have in building the future of our country.”
In addition to dropping the beauty pageants, NBC also said that Trump will not host another season of Celebrity Apprentice.
Trump is running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination and has said that he will sue NBC and Univision. His office said Monday that NBC is “weak” and “trying to be politically correct.”
image courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski/INFphoto.com