'Too Old' Beauty Queen Sues Miss America Pageant

Longacre seeks $500K, return of Miss Delaware crown
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 17, 2014 2:18 AM CDT
'Too Old' Beauty Queen Sues Miss America Organizers
Longacre was stripped of her title and prizes including $11,000 in scholarship money.   (LiVe InTerViEwS)

The 24-year-old beauty queen stripped of her Miss Delaware title for being too old is suing national and local pageant organizers to get her crown back. Amanda Longacre will still be 24 when the Miss America pageant is held in September, but she turns 25 the next month and says that while she advanced through the competition, she was never told that turning 25 before the end of 2014 would disqualify her. She has filed a $3 million class-action lawsuit, seeking $500,000 for herself and $2.5 million for other contestants who were certified to compete and then disqualified, the News Journal reports.

Longacre—who deferred her master's program and her Department of Justice internship after being crowned Miss Delaware—is also seeking a waiver so she can still compete in the Miss America pageant. Her suit alleges that pageant organizers knowingly recruit ineligible contestants to boost participation. The president of the Miss America organization says Longacre's lawsuit is "without merit and we will defend it vigorously," reports the AP. (More Amanda Longacre stories.)

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