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Miss USA isn't boycotting Miss Universe pageant, claim started as satire | Fact check

Hannah Hudnall   Paste BN

The claim: Miss USA is boycotting Miss Universe pageant because of transgender contestant

A July 16 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) claims the winner of the Miss USA pageant is boycotting the global level of the competition.

"Miss USA Boycotts Miss Universe Pageant: “I’m Not Competing Against a Man,'" reads the post.

The user who created the post also shared a link in the comments to a July 16 article published on a website called Laptops Villa.

The post garnered more than 2,000 shares in a day. Similar versions of the claim have been shared on Facebook.

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Our rating: False

The claim originated as satire. Miss USA has not announced a boycott of the Miss Universe pageant.

Claim first appeared on satirical website

Rikkie Valerie Kollé became the first transgender woman to be named Miss Netherlands on July 8, and she could potentially go on to be the first transgender Miss Universe.

The decision has been met with some online criticism, but Miss USA hasn't announced a boycott.

The text in the Laptops Villa article is nearly identical to a July 9 article by the Dunning-Kruger Times, which describes itself as a subsidiary of the America's Last Line of Defense satirical network. The website's "About Us" page says, "Everything on this website is fiction."

Another sign that the article's content is fabricated is the fact that it refers to a woman named Natasha Berkelston, who supposedly grew up in Ashbaucher, Indiana, as Miss USA. Ashbaucher isn't a real town, and no one with that name has ever been named Miss USA.

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The article is an example of what could be called "stolen satire," where stories written as satire and presented that way originally are reposted in a way that makes them appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here.

Christopher Blair, creator of America's Last Line of Defense, told Paste BN everything on the network's websites is fiction, including the Miss USA article.

"Nothing on any of those websites will ever be 'real' unless it comes true on its own," said Blair in an email.

He also noted that the image used at the top of the article features Miss Russia, Anna Linnikova, not Miss USA.

Morgan Romano of North Carolina is the reigning Miss USA, and there haven't been any credible reports of her announcing a boycott of the Miss Universe pageant.

Paste BN has previously debunked numerous false claims originating from the Dunning-Kruger Times.

Paste BN reached out to Laptops Villa, the Dunning-Kruger Times and the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

PolitiFact and Reuters also debunked the claim.

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