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For 12 months, I lived the life of a celebrity as if I had always been one, being flown first class around the world and across the country, walking major red carpets that I never ever imagined I’d be walking on, making speeches like a public official, and appearing in ads and spreads in multiple magazines that I had been reading for years. Everyone wants you when you’re the reigning queen. And then, in another instant, it’s all gone. No team behind you, guiding you, or supporting you. It’s almost as if it never was. It very much feels like, “K thanks, bye!”

For 60 years, one woman would find herself wearing the crown and sash of Miss USA for a whole year. She would go down in the Miss USA history books, her name forever attached to that title. For six years, I had watched one woman’s life completely change on live television as she got crowned as Miss USA. I would follow her reign on the Miss Universe website, her travels, her red carpet appearances, etc. It was a job and responsibility I had really wanted for myself. It always seemed like an unachievable dream. I would daydream about winning a state pageant and winning Miss USA. I would daydream about what my reign would be like - living in the Miss Universe apartment in New York and traveling the world representing the Miss Universe Organization and countless charities. But then, one day, on June 19, 2011, that impossible dream became a thrilling reality. I never thought that one day, a girl from a small town in New Jersey, would find herself wearing the crown and sash of Miss USA. It was something I wanted, but the chances were extraordinary.