LOS ANGELES – The name and likeness of Kristy Althaus, the first runner-up in the 2012 Miss Colorado Teen USA beauty contest, have reportedly been removed from the pageant's website following a report that she made a porn video shortly after turning 18. The gossip website Gawker.com printed before and after versions of the site, which show that her name has been deleted. They say her name was removed after they contacted the pageant about her alleged porn video.
They reported that a YouTube video of the 2012 pageant, showing her and the eventual winner onstage, had been removed from the Miss Teen Colorado USA site as well.
The moves came after a woman strongly resembling Althaus appeared on an adult entertainment site, Gawker reports. The video and screenshots from it have gone viral and have been widely circulated on an array of X-rated websites.
The subject of the video is asked by a man off-camera to confirm that she is 18. She also states that it is her first adult video.
Althaus, whose name was also removed from the Kansas State University directory on Friday, did not respond to an email request for comment.
The Miss Colorado USA pageant is the state feeder to the Donald Trump-owned Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants. Reps for the Colorado pageant and the Miss Universe Organization did not respond to a request for comment.
Angie Meyer, a former publicist for the Miss California pageant, looked at the video of Althaus in the Miss Colorado Teen USA pageant, and the porn video, and said she thought they were "for sure the same girl." A porn insider said it was a "pretty good bet" it was the same person in each video. "But short of seeing the 2257 model ID and docs, there is no way to say 100 percent for sure."
The insider pointed us to the site's 2257 page, which states it is in compliance with the law that all models be over 18 years old.
Roger Neal, a rep who has worked closely with the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA branches, told FOX411: "The pageant these days seems to like controversy. And the girls (who participate) often see examples daily of reality stars being rewarded for bad behavior, so they figure if they act badly, they will be stars too."
Althaus’ Twitter account was also taken down after the report surfaced, but a site that archives tweets still had some of her most recent, including: "Trust is like an eraser, it gets smaller with every mistake you make," and "There's three ways to do things ... the right way, the wrong way and the way I do it."
Miss Teen USA has rules; one is that contestants can't be married or have been married. State organizers may also have their own contracts with moral clauses. Meyer told us there is an unwritten ethical obligation for the participants to uphold traditional values when it comes to a high-profile pageant such as Miss Teen USA.
"There shouldn't be a question if these types of actions are justified in the pageant world - they aren't," she said. "What a poor example this sets for teenage girls across the country."
Tom Hynes, senior editor of AVN (Adult Video Network) Magazine, said women are paid a few hundred to $1,000 for videos such as the one Althaus allegedly made. He questioned why such a big deal is being made of the incident, especially given that Althaus, if she’s the woman in the video, doesn't appear to have broken the rules while she was in the pageant.
"Looks to me like she won runner-up two years ago fair and square and is being 'punished' retroactively for behavior undertaken well after the year she won is already over," Hynes said.
"It's the pageant organizers who seem out-of-control here. They brought this on themselves by erasing any mention of her."
Althaus is not the first pageant queen to be embroiled in a porn scandal. In 2012, Miss Delaware Teen USA relinquished her crown amid allegations that she had made a porn video. Then there was 2012’s Miss Nevada, who risked losing her title after risqué photographs of her posing lewdly with porn king Ron Jeremy were cited on her Facebook page.
A few years earlier, 2006’s Miss Nevada Katie Rees was stripped of her sash after naughty snaps of her in less-than-ladylike positions made their way onto social media. Carrie Prejean, Miss California USA 2009, was also fired after a personal sex tape she made surfaced.
Source: FOX News, 2/1/2014
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