Pageantry

After days of ridicule, Miss Utah finally had a chance to redeem herself on the "Today" show this AM -- and this time she answered the infamous pageant question WITH FLYING COLORS!!! For a beauty queen.

Marissa Powell sat down with Matt Lauer and explained -- as TMZ previously reported -- that nerves got the best of her during Sunday night's Miss USA contest ... causing her to give one of the most confusing answers in pageant history.

Matt, being the saint he is, gave Marissa ONE MORE SHOT to get the question right ... see how she did this time. And remember folks she only had 48 hours, the Internet and a team of people to help her prepare.

Talk about pressure.

Here’s Miss South Carolina Teen USA 2007, Caitlin Upton at age 18 (left) … and Miss Utah USA, Marissa Powell (21) this past weekend (right) -- Both beauty queens famously bombed their responses to a pageant question.

Miss Utah is beyond humiliated after her epic Q&A fail at the Miss USA pageant, and she's blaming her brain fart on a massive case of nerves ... TMZ has learned.

Sources close to Marissa Powell tell TMZ the beauty queen's mortified after babbling ... "we need to see how to create education better" while attempting to answer a question about salary inequality for women.

Marissa's now telling friends she botched the response because she was so anxious she spaced out during the question, and never really heard it.

Instead of asking the judge to repeat the question ... Marissa decided to fake an answer, but got more and more flustered as she tried to improvise.

Takes you back to high school, right?

Or maybe to 2007 with the South Carolina, and such as ...

Miss Utah Marissa Powell put on a clinic at the Miss USA pageant Sunday night -- but did she snatch the bumbling-stumbling crown from former Miss South Carolina Teen USA?

Time for a dumb-off ... enjoy!

Miss Utah is now in the beauty pageant Hall of Fame -- not because she won Miss USA, but because she bumbled through a cringe-inducing (and hysterical) 30 second answer that included the phrase, "create education better."

Judge Nene Leakes asked Marissa Powell about women in the workplace and equal pay -- which sent 21-year-old Miss Utah into a tailspin of a reply.

She starts out kinda strong, saying ... "I think we can relate this back to education, and how we are continuing to try to strive to ... " -- and then the fail begins.

Pretty sure you can see the smoke coming out of her ears as the implosion begins.

She's really pretty though.

Melissa King -- the chick formerly known as Miss Delaware Teen USA until she resigned in the wake of a porn scandal -- is officially on probation ... after copping a plea in her underage alcohol case.

The 19-year-old disgraced beauty queen plead guilty in a Maryland court to one count of possession of alcohol while under the age of 21 ... stemming from an incident last summer when cops found a bottle of Captain Morgan in her truck.

As part of the deal, King was sentenced to 1 year of unsupervised probation -- meaning if she stays out of trouble for the next 365 days, she stays out of jail.

Fun Fact -- King's lawyer told the court Melissa plans to go to college.

Turns out Justin Bieber is not loved by all Canadians -- in fact ... the hottest woman North of the Border, Miss Canada herself, thinks the Biebs is "a bit of a douche."

Sahar Biniaz, the reigning Miss Universe Canada, told our photog last night that she once tried to get a picture with Bieber ... but he blew her off!!!

Biniaz isn't even willing to let bygones be bygones ... saying she doesn't even want the pic anymore.

She might have lost her crown ... but former Miss Delaware Teen USA Melissa King has just been offered a pretty sweet back-up plan ... $250,000 to promote a hardcore porn site.

As we reported, 18-year-old King resigned yesterday after a porno surfaced that allegedly featured King doing the dirty ... just months before she won the title last November.

Now, porn giant YouPorn.com wants to compensate her for the unfortunate situation -- offering to crown King the first ever "Miss YouPorn" and pay her $250,000 to tour the world promoting the website.

Funny enough, YouPorn's offer -- which was submitted to King yesterday -- doesn't mention having sex on camera in exchange for the fee. Not a bad deal.

Miss Delaware Teen USA Melissa King has officially given up her crown today ... after a porn surfaced on the Internet that allegedly features the 18-year-old beauty queen.

A rep for the Miss Teen USA pageant just released a statement, claiming, "I would like to confirm the Miss Delaware Teen USA pageant has received a resignation letter from Miss King’s attorney."

King reportedly denies it's her in the hardcore sex footage -- but the girl in the video looks and sounds EXACTLY like King.

In the vid -- shot some time in June 2012 -- the girl addresses the camera, claiming she turned 18 a couple months beforehand in March, which is King's birth month. The girl also describes her favorite sex position ... before the actual sex begins.

King was crowned Miss Delaware Teen USA in November ... four months after the sex footage was shot.

A rep for the pageant tells us, they have already reached out to the first runner-up Hailey Lawler in order to replace King.

Walks like a duck, talks like a duck ... resigns like a duck.

"Splash" -- formerly known as "Celebrity Diving" -- seems like just another reality TV show ... until you see Katherine Webb in a bathing suit.

The former Miss Alabama USA -- famous for her cameo at the BCS National Championship this year -- donned the magenta monokini earlier today while filming a show segment in L.A..

"Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Paul Nassif tells TMZ, he's only been dating his smoking hot 27-year-old beauty queen girlfriend for SIX WEEKS -- which squarely contradicts a report he was banging the girl while still with his wife Adrienne Maloof.

Reports circulated Paul has been dating former Miss Nevada USA Helen Salas since April last year -- four months before Paul filed for divorce in August.

But last night, as Paul and Helen arrived to The Ivy for dinner, the couple told us they only met 6 weeks ago ... several months after the divorce filing.

As for Adrienne ... she's also dating a much younger person -- Rod Stewart's 32-year-old son Sean Stewart.

It's only been one month since Mallory Hagan won the title of Miss America 2013 ... after KILLING IT in the swimsuit competition ... and it appears she's back to eating like a normal human being again.

24-year-old Hagan was spotted rocking a pink bikini in Hawaii yesterday ... still looking incredible ... with a little more to love.

Sometimes ya just gotta let loose.

It's the question millions of gentlemen ... and Brent Musburger ... have been dying to know -- WILL KATHERINE WEBB TAKE IT OFF FOR PLAYBOY?!?!??

Miss Alabama USA -- more famously known as AJ McCarron's super hot GF -- arrived at LAX yesterday when one of the photogs finally posed the question ... and her answer is interesting.

It's clear the decision to do it would upset some very important people in her life ... but IF they were ever to come around, you think she would too?

She's barely been famous for a week ... but "Big Rich Atlanta" star Ashlee Wilson-Hawn is already in the middle of a naked photo scandal ... TMZ has learned.

Ashlee -- a former Miss Georgia Teen -- is warning media outlets that topless photos of her that are being shopped were NOT released with her permission ... and she's threatening to SUE anyone who publishes them.

We're told the pics were taken during a recent modeling shoot -- and feature a topless Ashlee doing that whole "I'm covering my boobs with my hands so you can't see my nipples" pose.

But Ashlee's rep tells TMZ ... the shoot in question was NOT meant to be a topless thing ... and if anyone has shots of her bare breasts, they were certainly ill-gotten.

The rep explains, "In the process of photo shoots, there is always the possibility of someone capturing photos that they shouldn't be taking as all models are seen in various states of dress during such events."

She continues, "Ashlee has never posed nude for a photo shoot and anyone that releases unlicensed and uncensored photos will definitely be sued."

And now ... here's Ash with her clothes on.

Miss America 2004 Ericka Dunlap is DEMANDING an apology from the beauty pageant organization -- claiming a racist producer moved her from a prime seat during the competition last weekend because she's black ... but the fact is, she was sitting in a no-Miss America zone.

Dunlap -- the first black woman to win Miss Florida in 2003 -- tells TMZ, "I was sitting there on the aisle, and during the first commercial break during top 15 announcement, a producer came up to me and said, 'Get out of that seat. I need the seat. I don’t give a f**k who you are. Get out of the f**king seat.'"

Dunlap says she refused to move because of the producer's tone, telling us, "I was spoken to as if I didn't matter. If I were any other Miss America, I would have never been spoken to like that. But I'm the only black one who comes back."

Dunlap says an assistant producer eventually came over and helped the first producer physically remove her from her seat -- "I was mortified." Dunlap says she was eventually relocated.

Dunlap doesn't plan to sue, but says she's still waiting for the organization or the producer to apologize for the way she was treated.

A rep for the Miss America organization says Dunlap's story is nonsense -- telling us, "During the night of the telecast, Ericka was unhappy with her seat, and she chose to move to a camera blocked seat that was reserved for the parents of our contestants."

Miss Universe 2012 Olivia Culpo is a spoiled rotten Boston University drunkard who can't handle a little cold weather ... well, at least according to a bitter angry woman from a rival Boston school.

Hint: The bitter angry woman is Shevonne.