{"id":328993,"date":"2026-08-25T04:06:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T04:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/328993\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T04:06:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T04:06:45","slug":"dethroned-beauty-queen-files-defamation-lawsuit-against-pageant-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/328993\/","title":{"rendered":"Dethroned beauty queen files defamation lawsuit against pageant officials"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUPLIN COUNTY, N.C. (WITN<\/a>\/Gray News) – Dethroned Miss North Carolina USA Brittany Boltinhouse and her legal team have filed a defamation lawsuit against pageant officials, alleging the organizations \u201cweaponized\u201d social media and destroyed her reputation. <\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed in Duplin County Superior Court on Sunday against defendants Miss USA CEO and President Thom Brodeur, JKN Universe LLC and A Blaize Productions LLC.<\/p>\n

Boltinhouse, who was on track to compete in the Miss USA 2026 pageant in Miami beginning this week, was stripped of her title<\/a> earlier this month after old social media posts resurfaced online.<\/p>\n

The suit does not probe the organizations\u2019 legal authority to revoke Boltinhouse\u2019s crown; it rather claims they were \u201cmaliciously coordinating to publish a false public narrative portraying Brittany Boltinhouse as a racist, homophobe, transphobe and intolerable bigot to be shunned from public life.\u201d <\/p>\n

The suit says the organizations\u2019 coordinated statements made on social media created devastating media coverage that continues to connect Brittany with \u201cwidespread accusations of racism, homophobia, transphobia and bigotry.\u201d <\/p>\n

The lawsuit claims the reason behind Boltinhouse\u2019s removal was her conservative political views.<\/p>\n

The suit includes photos and posts made by Boltinhouse that show her support for President Donald Trump, including a photo of her at one of his rallies in 2021. <\/p>\n

There are also screenshots within the suit of Boltinhouse\u2019s social media account between 2017 and 2019 that included racial slurs. <\/p>\n

Boltinhouse does not deny making the posts as a teenager but claims \u201cno offense was intended.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the onslaught of accusations made online, the suit states the decision was made following \u201cmultiple conversations\u201d and \u201cin consultation\u201d among officials with A Blaize Productions and the Miss USA organization.<\/p>\n

The suit claims that in these conversations, the defendants \u201cconspired to defame Brittany and destroy her reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The suit alleges the statement posted by Brodeur online falsely implied that Boltinhouse acknowledged herself as racist and was going to issue an apology. <\/p>\n

A Blaize Productions\u2019 statement did not explicitly say why Boltinhouse was removed but said it was in light of \u201crecently surfaced information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Included in the suit is also a prepared apology that A Blaize Productions shared with Boltinhouse. The suit says Boltinhouse played no role in writing or contributing to that statement. <\/p>\n

Audio recordings of phone calls and meetings between Boltinhouse and pageant officials are also transcribed in the suit, including conversations surrounding her online media presence and the political social media posts shared over the years. <\/p>\n

Within one of the transcribed calls, Nic Blaize of A Blaize Productions says, \u201cIt\u2019s not one thing, and it certainly has nothing to do with who you politically support…It is the defamatory things that you said, and when you add it all together, it\u2019s not one thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blaize continues, \u201cBrittany, this is not about your Christian beliefs. This is about defamatory things that you posted, and you said that were hurtful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boltinhouse is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, claiming the adverse media coverage that came after the organizations posted their statements cost her her reputation and thousands of dollars in fees and expenses. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a direct and proximate result of Defendants\u2019 conduct, Brittany has also suffered injury to her reputation and standing in the community, humiliation, embarrassment, mental anguish, emotional distress, and other general, specific and consequential damages.\u201d<\/p>\n

WITN<\/a> reached out to A Blaize Productions regarding the lawsuit. <\/p>\n

The full lawsuit can be read below. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUPLIN COUNTY, N.C. (WITN\/Gray News) – Dethroned Miss North Carolina USA Brittany Boltinhouse and her legal team have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[119315,119316,123711,123710,123709,3641,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-328993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-beauty-pageant","tag-brittany-boltinhouse","tag-brittany-boltinhouse-lawsuit","tag-miss-north-carolina","tag-miss-north-carolina-usa","tag-miss-usa","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}