Ex-Ms. Nevada Says She Was Stripped of Her Title, Booted From Pageant For Supporting Conservative Values

The winner of Ms. Nevada 2019 claims she was stripped of her title and booted from the upcoming national Ms. America Pageant for supporting conservative values on social media.

In a seven-minute-long video uploaded to Facebook earlier this week, Katie Williams, 29, said that she was officially disqualified from competing in the Ms. America 2019 pageant on Sunday. The pageant is scheduled to commence this Saturday.

"I just don't understand how you can censor someone with conservative values when I'm not even really saying anything that's bad," Williams said in the clip. "If I had more liberal views, less conservative views, this wouldn't be an issue."

Before her disqualification, Williams claims that she had exchanged "many" emails with the coordinators of the pageant. They said "I am too political to be in the pageant," she added. Williams went on to explain that when she asked the organizers what she could do to qualify, they allegedly told her to delete her social media accounts.

Speaking to Newsweek on Wednesday evening, Noah Jennings, Williams' spokesperson, made clear that his client claims she was booted from the pageant for supporting conservative values, not President Donald Trump. His clarification came after several news sites published articles earlier today claiming that Williams said she was barred from the pageant for supporting Trump.

"I was censored for my beliefs," Williams told Newsweek. "I was excited to compete in this pageant — everything was ready to go for this weekend — and so to have that opportunity taken away from me so quickly feels like a slap in the face."

She added: "The entire reason I participated in pageants in the first place was to provide young women like my daughter with a strong role model to look up to."

In a statement, the Ms. America Pageant denied Williams' claims and accused the former Ms. Nevada winner of "distorting the facts." "All the pageant asked of Ms. Williams, in writing, is to keep separate social media accounts," the statement said. "One is for politics where she can voice her own opinion as Katie Williams and the other is a new Facebook page for the pageant representing Ms. Nevada State 2019."

"Ms. America Pageant is a No Politics pageant," it continued, and Williams' disqualification had nothing "to do with her personal political views. They are immaterial."

The statement acknowledged that Williams has a "personal Facebook page to voice her political views," and said "the Ms. Nevada Facebook Page should be devoid of political content."

Williams asserted that she followed their guidance and created a separate pageant account. Despite my doing so, pageant officials "continued to screenshot my page—my personal page—and email me about how she was disappointed and she didn't agree with it and that I needed to speak with her on the phone," she said.

Ms. America CEO Susan Jeske told NBC News that Williams did create a separate social media pageant account on Facebook but alleged that the former Ms. Nevada winner's personal profile still contained both pageant-related content and political content, which effectively rendered it a "pageant page" and in breach of their regulations.

Jennings told Newsweek that Williams "did her due diligence when it came to complying with requests from the pageant" and accused Jeske of sending his client "mixed signals."

"Ms. America CEO Susan Jeske, who would encourage Katie over the phone, and then follow that up with emails and screenshots of things she took issue with," he continued. "Katie separated pages, combed through to remove posts, and overall made every effort to comply with the requests of the pageant."

"Unfortunately, it was still not enough, and the organization rescinded her title," Jennings added. "I think most people can draw their own conclusions."

Williams called Antifa a "Terrorist organization" and those who support their cause "Anti-American" in a tweet on Saturday. She posted a screenshot of the tweet to Facebook a day later. William's current Facebook profile photo shows her smiling while wearing a "MAGA" hat.

This story has been updated to include comment from Katie Williams and her spokesperson, Noah Jennings.