Taking The Pageant Personally

How have you been holding up emotionally after everything's that's happened?

I'm definitely not over it. I had a really difficult time after the press circuit sort of died down. I, it finally really was like, oh my God, I'm not the winner and I'm not going to compete in Miss USA and it really was a really dark time for me. It was probably the week before Christmas and one, it's the holidays. So you add the holidays and you add the Christmas spirit and cheer and joy. I just wasn't having any of it. I was very depressed. I would speak to my mom about it and they would console me, my parents would try to console me with family things. Let's go out, or let's do this, let's do that, but it was so hard, and yes, I had some really dark moments within myself, feeling a lot of pity to myself but not in a way where it was like oh poor me, just kind of like why me? And what did I do wrong? So, that was very difficult. But, as of right now, I'm looking forward to my future, and I'm not, I don't want to dwell on this for the rest of my life. I don't want to have animosity or anger toward anyone who could be affiliated with what had happened because I'm not going to live my life like that. I'm not going to let other people run how I feel.

How do you feel now when you hear about the Miss USA competition?

As you can see I'm happy right now but of course it hurts once in awhile when I read stories about Raquel moving here. I read in the Barstow Newspaper where Raquel Beasley is from that she said she is going to come to LA for I think a good month before the competition or maybe two months to train with her walking coaches and her personal trainer. She is going to have a speech coach and just sort of do all the things that I was supposed to do. She's coming to my city and I will be open to that and welcome to that.