The 2007 Miss Teen USA contestant, who was widely mocked for stuttering when answering questions during the pageant, has said it’s “disappointing” that J.D. Vance recirculated a video of her difficult moment attacking Kamala Harris, blaming “cyberbullying.”
Meanwhile, the Republican candidate running for vice president in November’s election denied apologizing to Kaitlyn Upton, who has said publicly she considered suicide during the ordeal caused by Vance.
Seventeen years ago, while competing on national television for the crown of Miss Teen USA, Upton made headlines for all the wrong reasons when actress and pageant judge Aimee Teegarden asked her why she thought an estimated 20 percent of Americans couldn’t find her country on a world map.
“I personally believe the reason Americans can’t do that is because, well, some people in this country don’t have a map,” Upton, then an 18-year-old representative from South Carolina, responded. “And I believe education in South Africa, Iraq, everywhere, should help the United States, South Africa, Iraq, Asian countries, so that we can build the future.”
As soon as host and actor Mario Lopez finished saying “Thank you very much, South Carolina” with a straight face to polite applause from the audience, Upton was met with a flurry of detractors, especially online. An August 2007 article in the online publication Salon titled “Miss Stupid Blonde USA? A South Carolina Teenage Contestant’s World Knowledge Embarrasses a Nation” summarized the reaction to Upton’s gaffe in the beauty pageant that, along with Miss Universe and Miss USA, Donald Trump dominated from 1996 until 2015, the year before he won the presidential election.
Upton later told New York magazine that she was once subjected to swearing from college baseball players at a party, and that she once received a letter telling her to “die for your stupidity.” She described how the harassment led her into a state of depression and suicidal thoughts.
But she said her family and loved ones ultimately helped her get through the experience, and she eventually got into real estate, got married, and had two children.
Upton also reportedly voiced support for President Trump online during that time, including Trump’s lies that voter fraud rigged his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
Trump’s running mate all but erased Harris from the public consciousness on Thursday, just before CNN aired her first news network interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.
Vance’s X account re-published a video clip of Upton’s infamous 2007 remarks with the caption, “BREAKING: We got the full text of Kamala Harris’ CNN interview.”
Upton made it clear Friday that she did not approve of Vance’s post.
“It’s sad that 17 years later this is still being brought up,” Upton wrote to X shortly before deleting her account from the social media platform. “One thing I do know is that regardless of political beliefs, social media and cyberbullying must stop.”
Meanwhile, appearing on CNN on Friday, Vance dismissed Upton’s video as “just a 20-year-old meme” and urged Upton to “laugh it off.”
“Politics has become so boring,” Vance told host John Berman. “You can have some fun and still debate ways to improve the lives of Americans.”
“I make no apologies for posting the joke, but I wish Kaitlyn the best and hope she’s doing well.”
With Trump trailing Harris in the polls, the whole series of events is unlikely to ease Republican concerns about Vance’s performance during the election.
Vance has repeatedly dealt with scandal over past comments he made about women and their role in American society, especially since he described Democratic Party leaders as “childless cat ladies” and blasted the head of the teachers union for not having “her own” children.
Additionally, The Guardian reported on Saturday that the married father of three said in a 2021 podcast interview that working women were choosing a “path to misery” by prioritizing work over childbirth. These comments had previously gone largely unnoticed.