Conservative Beauty Queen Stripped of Her Title Over ‘Offensive’ Tweets
Kathy Zhu, a University of Michigan student, claims her “refusal to try on a hijab” and her tweets about African Americans cost her the title.

Jewel Samad/Getty
A beauty pageant winner known for her conservative views was stripped of her title after the Miss World America competition deemed her social media content “offensive, insensitive, and inappropriate,” The Detroit Free Press reports. Kathy Zhu, a 20-year-old University of Michigan student and Trump supporter, was stripped of her Miss Michigan title one day after she was crowned. On Twitter, Zhu claimed the action was prompted by her “refusal to try on a hijab” at her college campus in 2018 and old tweets about African Americans and Muslims. In one tweet, she wrote that the African American community needed to “fix problems within [their] own community” because the “majority of black deaths are caused by other blacks.” “I have seen this happen before,” Zhu told the newspaper. “It is just not okay to be prejudiced against people who just have a different political view as you.” Miss World America representatives reportedly did not respond to requests for comment.
Miss World America's State/National/Chief Director accused me of being racist, Islamaphobic, and insensitive.
— Kathy Zhu (@PoliticalKathy) July 19, 2019
They stripped me of my Miss Michigan title due to my refusal to try on a hijab in 2018, my tweet about black on black gun violence, and "insensitive" statistical tweets. pic.twitter.com/K1Btho0Pgq
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