This interview appeared in Metro Boston on June 6.
Boston University student Olivia Culpo was named the new Miss USA earlier this week after besting 50 other beauty queens in the Las Vegas pageant.
The 20-year-old took some time yesterday to talk with Metro about her widely-discussed pageant answer and time in Boston.
You just finished your sophomore year at BU and now you’re Miss USA. What does that mean for your future with school?
“I am still enrolled in school, so right now I just plan on taking a year off, but I don’t really know where this year is going to take me. I definitely want to finish my college degree, but I’m not sure where yet. I’m thinking I’ll come back to Boston though.”
Your response of support to the question about including transgender people in the competition is getting a lot of attention on its own. Are you surprised or did you think it would be that big of a deal?
“Well I did know that it was a controversial topic so, yeah, I had an idea. I was just in such shock after I had won that it didn’t exactly register, but as soon as I won everybody kept asking me about my question and saying they were so nervous for me when I was asked such a controversial question. But it wasn’t really too difficult for me to answer. I kind of just stuck to what I believe and that was pretty easy for me. I just kind of spoke from my heart I guess.”
BU has had a tough year … including the hazing incidents and hockey players accused of rape and some tragedy with students killed while abroad and another fatally shot. What do you think your win does for BU after all of that?
“I hope that it would uplift the spirits because we have had a tough year. Those sort of tragedies are just awful and of course nobody can control them, but that’s kind of how just life happens. It was just really, really awful tragedies that can happen in any part of life.”
