No crown for you: American beauty queen dethroned for being too old

Amanda Longacre isn’t even a quarter century old and is dealing with an age-old reality: we’re getting old. Unfortunately for her, she turns 25 in October, thus making her unqualified for the Miss Delaware crown she won on June 14. Pageant officials say contestants cannot turn 25 before the end of the year and will award that crown to first runner-up Brittany Lewis, who is 23. The new Miss Delaware will compete for the Miss America honour in September.

It’s like they’re trying to erase me in a way like it never happened. And it’s not fair because I won outright and I deserve to represent my state and I want the chance still to go to Miss America.

Amanda Longacre, former Miss Delaware

In another beauty pageant goof, the winner of the 2014 Miss Florida pageant was dethroned on Friday just a week after her coronation when organisers said they had crowned the wrong woman after a vote-count error. Pageant officials said Elizabeth Fechtel, a 20-year-old University of Florida student, would have to turn over her tiara to the true Miss Florida, 21-year-old Florida State University student Victoria Cowen.

Americas