The Miss USA hopeful sued by Trump: 'There are ways to stand your ground'
Sheena Monnin saw beauty pageants as a way to fulfill her potential – she never imagined they’d be the gateway through which Donald Trump would try to destroy her life. Even now, she insists, the debacle has not made her anti-pageant, just anti-Trump.
During that competition (Trump’s 2012 Miss USA pageant), according to Monnin, another contestant, Karina Brez of Florida, insisted to several women backstage mid-pageant that she already knew who the top five final contestants would be, and specifically, that she had seen the names of the pre-selected women listed in a notebook at the back of the stage. Though Monnin never saw such a notebook herself, when contestants Brez had predicted were later selected, Monnin came to the conclusion that the pageant was rigged.
But this year, Miss Universe judge Jeff Lee admitted in GQ that Trump – who from 1996 to 2015 owned or co-owned both Miss Universe and Miss USA – frequently had a say in which women made the final round. According to the story’s author, Burt Helm: “Lee will tell you that from 2005 until Donald Trump sold the Miss Universe pageant last year, the billionaire quietly handpicked as many as six semifinalists – ‘Trump cards’, they were called.” Helm said that lower-level beauty pageant picks were so often subject to “massaging” that this was considered an “open secret” among former contestants.
If so, this “open secret” had not been shared with Monnin, and she resigned her Miss Pennsylvania crown in protest. But it wasn’t until she wrote a post on Facebook about the situation that things started getting out of hand.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/04/sheena-monnin-donald-trump-miss-usa-lawsuit
Trump sued her for $10 million for defamation (in reality it was more 'definition') of character - among the 1,900 lawsuits he has filed.
