‘My Abuser Is Here Today’: Miss Kansas Stuns the World with Powerful Pageant Speech
Imagine using one of the most traditional stages to speak your truth and set yourself free. That’s precisely what Alexis Smith, newly crowned Miss Kansas, did during her speech last June.
“My vision as the next Miss Kansas is to eliminate unhealthy and abusive relationships,” Smith says in a video that has gone viral in recent days. “In fact, some of you in the audience have seen me very emotional because my abuser is here today. But that’s not going to stop me from being on this Miss Kansas stage and representing as the next Miss Kansas.”
Best beauty pageant final interview ever
“My community and I deserve healthy relationships,” Smith goes on to say in her video. Standing tall in a sequined blue gown, with a quiver in her mouth but with the strength of one who knows her own worth, the new Miss Kansas is now a national icon.
In an interview with Kansas KSNW, Smith, a cardiothoracic ICU nurse, said every woman in her family has been a victim of domestic violence.
“At 14, I was in my first relationship, but it was also an abusive relationship that I was in until about 2018, 2019,” she said. “It’s something that I’m still experiencing and still dealing with today.”
Alexis Smith decided to use the Miss Kansas Organization to promote a platform in advocacy for healthy relationships
“I took advantage of the [organization], which really focuses on empowering women,” she said. “And me, being a woman who has needed that empowerment my whole life, being a bystander of domestic violence, a victim, a survivor, and now an advocate, as well as an education-driven young woman, I have the opportunity to not only share my story on such a large scale but also to go back to school.”
Smith explained that the Miss Kansas crown has four points: “style success, scholarship, and service.”
“A big part of that is service and going out and taking your community, and not only developing a better you but a better community as well, and talking about your social impact and your initiative,” Smith said. “It’s something I’m incredibly excited to do on a large scale.”
