Reality Bites: Pageant Place's Katie Blair

Katie Blair has a peculiar living situation which might just be every man’s dream. Blair, aka Miss Teen USA 2006, rooms with Miss Universe, Riyo Mori, Miss USA, Rachel Smith, and the newly crowned Miss Teen USA 2007, Hillary Cruz. Tara Conner, the former (and now reformed) Miss Teen USA 2005 comes by the apartment every now and then to make sure they don't get into trouble. The three women who hold the varying pageant titles each year live in the same midtown luxury apartment during their reign and Donald Trump, co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization, foots the bill. This year, however, the queens are living in front of MTV’s cameras on their new show, Pageant Place. PAPERMAG sat down with Katie and got the lowdown on all things reality, Miss South Carolina and the Donald.

Blaire Huntley: Can you tell us about the show? I have this idea in my head that it’s going to be like The Hills, only with prettier girls.
Katie Blair: [Laughs] It’s not actually and the only reason I can say that is because we went into this show with the idea of really more of a documentary of our lives, how we live day to day, doing our jobs and representing our titles so, I don’t think it’ll be like The Hills -- I hope it’s not like The Hills!

BH: You don’t like The Hills?
KB: I love the show! But hopefully it’ll have some variation.

BH: So tell me about coming to live in New York -- how does it compare to Houston.
KB: I was raised my entire life in Houston, so I’m used to a big city -- it was a blast. I have wanted to live in New York my whole life, I mean, I applied to F.I.T., fashion was something I really wanted to get in to. I guess in the end, I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore! But no, it’s a great place to live and a great place to experience a lot of stuff that I experienced at my age and it really made me grow up.

BH: So you’re done with fashion design? I read somewhere that you were trying your hand at acting and modeling?
KB: Yeah, I don’t want to design clothes anymore. It’s something I dreamed of doing my entire life, but I guess after being in New York and being in the industry and behind the scenes, especially with our stylist Billie, I don’t think it’s something I was meant to do. I am trying to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. Exactly what? I’m not sure yet! Acting is something I really want to do and that I’m interested in quite a bit. Right now I’m just trying to get my feet on the ground and get a good group together to help me pursue that.

BH: What’s Donald Trump like? Does he ever come by the apartment a lot on the show? Have you ever touched his hair?
KB: Honestly, I don’t think he even knows where we live!

BH: Seriously?
KB: Yeah! I say that seriously, I mean, he’s never been by the apartment, but we go to visit him and we do events with him and stuff. He’s just one of the most incredible men I’ve ever met and I think I’m really honored to say that my first boss was Donald Trump -- well, besides my dad. He’s a great man, a great businessman, he’s a good father, he’s raised some wonderful children and he has an incredible wife and career, and he’s just a great guy.

BH: From the trailers I’ve seen, it looks like you endure a lot of drama with Rachel and Tara. Were there a lot of crowns thrown around? What was the bulk of the arguments about, without telling too much?

KB: I love that! ‘Crowns being thrown around!’ Uh, there’s not a lot of drama in the house because we are taught to be reserved and politically correct so it’s hard for us to actually come out, make drama or say what we’re feeling to each other.

BH: You mean like the pageant people teach you that?
KB: Yes, the organization. This was my very first pageant. I went in it blinded and… won. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into -- my grandma signed me up for it. It was definitely one of those on a whim things. And Tara and Rachel both competed against each other at Miss Teen USA back in 2003. So, they’ve been in this business a while, you know, and once you win at the national level, you’re trained for the first month of your reign how to be in public and how to speak and do interviews. So it’s tough not to do that in our real lives. So, between us girls, if you do see any drama, it’s very genuine, but it’s because it’s that time and it needed to come out.

BH: So Hillary Cruz comes in and you give up your crown on the show. Was it hard? What was it like to give up a year of your life and hand it over to someone else?
KB: I get tears every time I talk about giving it to Hillary because she was my choice from the very beginning. As soon as I showed up in Pasadena, I wanted her to win. I was nervous about giving my crown up just because of who it would go to and what they would do with the title but I was excited though. It was exciting to move on to a new chapter in my life because of how tough it was. So I was eager to give it up and I was eager to get to know Katie again and live on my own schedule and my own way and whatnot. But there weren’t any hard feelings or anything, it wasn’t until afterwards that I started to get a little emotional.

BH: You said you had a rough year. What was the least glamorous thing you did as Miss Teen USA in your opinion?
KB: I think some of volunteering we do. One of my favorite organizations I volunteer with is Gay Men’s Health Crisis. A couple days a week through my reign, I would go and serve food there in their kitchen and anyone who hears that, you know, it’s not the most glamorous thing in the world, but it’s my favorite thing to do. Also, I always tell everyone that my favorite event of the year was WWF Mania when we watched Mr. Trump and Vincent McMahon go at each other! Stereotypically, you know, it’s not the classiest event to go to, but I had the most fun -- it was the funnest event of my entire life. I told my boyfriend after, ‘That’s going to be something I go to every single year!’

BH: What do you think about Miss South Carolina and her response to the question about geography?
KB: I think that her question was obviously very tough, but I don’t think she chose the right words. It’s really a question of how she handled herself; she was obviously confused. It shows that the pageant has to choose a winner based on many things. I think she had a great chance of winning before that and obviously it shows a lot about her answer and I don’t necessarily think it’s a question of her intelligence.

BH: A final pageant question for you: What is your one wish for the world? World peace? Or for Donald and Rosie to stop bickering?
KB: I think a lot of the world peace would be taken care of if they didn’t fight, but you know what? Mr. Trump has a lot of points when he fights with her, so I’m on his side all the way! World peace will never come, so we might as well try and get Rosie and Mr. Trump to be friends, right?

BH: Good answer! Congratulations, you won.
KB: Aww, thank you!

Pageant Place premieres tonight at 10:30 p.m. EST on MTV.