Miss Teen USA competitor slammed after old N-word video resurfaces

By Andrew Court February 11, 2022 12:28pm

Kate Dixon, 17, is set to represent the state of Washington at the upcoming beauty pageant, but there are now calls for her to be booted from the competition over her use of the racial slur.
TikTok

This beauty pageant scandal sure is getting ugly.

A Miss Teen USA competitor is under fire after an alleged video of her uttering the N-word went viral on TikTok.

Kate Dixon, 17, is set to represent the state of Washington at the upcoming pageant, but there are now calls on social media for her to be booted from the competition over her use of the racial slur.

The footage of Dixon using the epithet was reportedly filmed back in 2018, when she was 14 years old, but resurfaced on social media last week.

TikTok user @juliuspleazerfanaccount shared the old footage, which has garnered more than 8.4 million views.

The TikTok video begins with recent footage of Dixon being crowned Miss Teen Washington before it suddenly cuts to the 2018 clip of the teen saying the N-word.

“Gangster n—-r!” Dixon can be seen stating before she erupts with laughter.

The TikTok clip also featured an old video of Dixon lip-synching to vulgar audio, which states: “I only love men when they have money and big c—s.”

The Post has reached out to Miss Teen USA for comment.

Dixon appeared on FOX13 Seattle, apologizing for her use of the slur, saying she was forced into saying it by upperclassmen at her school.

“They coerced me into saying a racial slur,” the beauty queen insisted. “I told them, ‘No, I don’t want to say that. I know that it’s not appropriate.’ And they told me, ‘You have a free pass just this one time. It would be funny.’ So I decided, after much persuasion, I said the word that they wanted me to say and without my knowledge I was recorded.”

Dixon stated the video quickly spread around her school just days after it was recorded. She was bullied and received death threats, ultimately forcing her to leave the educational institution.

The beauty queen says the video of her saying the N-word has followed her around for the past three years, causing her significant distress. Instagram/@misswateenusa

The pageant queen claimed the video has resurfaced intermittently in the past three years, and she isn’t surprised it made its way to TikTok in light of her being crowned Miss Teen Washington.

“I have learned my lesson, and I have not used that word to this day,” she declared.

For the time being, Pageants Northwest — the agency that oversees four states in the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA organizations — is standing by Dixon.

Dixon is pictured at left with a fellow Miss Teen Washington competitor. She says she has learned her lesson and has never said the N-word since the video was recorded. Instagram/@misswateenusa

“What she did was absolutely unacceptable,” the company’s executive producer, Maureen Francisco, told FOX 13. “[But] our organization is designed to [encourage you to] be the best version of yourself and if somebody admits fault, has apologized, and says, ‘Hey, I want to work on being the best version of myself’ … how do you turn your back away?”

However, others aren’t so forgiving.

Many on TikTok called for the teen queen to be disqualified from the Miss Teen USA competition.

Pageant organizers are standing by Dixon, saying she had apologized for her actions. Instagram/@misswateenusa

Meanwhile, Hannah Merritt, an African American model who placed third runner-up in Miss Teen Washington, said she was “distraught” by the situation.

“As an African American woman who’s walked that stage four times and has the weight of so many little girls on my shoulders, to know that Kate … won, it’s just really tiring,” she told KIRO 7.

https://nypost.com/2022/02/11/miss-teen-usa-competitor-slammed-after-old-n-word-video-resurfaces/