10 former child beauty pageant contestants share ugly behind-the-scenes stories.
The only thing in the world more dangerous than a Stage Mom is a Pageant Mom.
Former beauty queens who survived the pageant circuit shared their stories of the drama that goes on backstage under the clouds of hairspray, and it was ironically the only page on Reddit that wasn't full of JonBenét Ramsey jokes.
Not every toddler with a tiara ends up with a spinoff like Honey Boo Boo Child—some people simply end up with a trophy shelf and emotional trauma, and they're full of cautionary tales. The pageant moms are out for blood. And trophies.
1. averym88 kept it real, and then was injured on stage.
when i was about four my mom put me in a pageant. she refused to put any makeup on me, put me in clothes from the gap, and kept me all natural. i ended up winning against all the glitzy little girls and when the announcer pulled me off stage - he popped my shoulder out of my socket and i had to go to the emergency room. they invited me back but my mom was furious and i never did them again.
2. irishrose7777 met a pageant mom straight outta Drop Dead Gorgeous.
The majority of people I met in pageants were nice, but there were one or two I could do without. One pageant I ended up winning my division over a girl I'd been in a pageant or two with before. When I got to the dressing room afterwards to change, her mother was ranting about me winning, saying it was rigged, I didn't deserve it, ect.
I honestly didn't care, and my mom didn't want to get involved so she was just trying to help me get out of there as soon as possible. Another mom told her to watch her mouth, and she flew off the handle. She started SCREECHING and ranting, calling me a b*tch and all of that.
My mom scurried me out of the room, and as we got to the door the other mom flung her daughter's trophy at me, missed, and it hit the wall so hard that the marble split in two. I actually saw the daughter at another pageant and a cheer competition, it was awkward.
3. zombiemommybot's mom sounds like a narcissistic zombie robot.
My mom started me in pageants before I was a year old. I was forced to do them until I was 12. As early as I can remember I hated them. Straight up bawling my eyes out while getting hair and makeup done which got me yelled at and spanked in circles a lot. There were no best moments, I hated every bit of it and its seriously caused a lot of resentment towards my mother.
4. downinfragglerock succinctly summed up the best and worst parts.
Best - Frilly dresses. Trophies. New friends, many of whom came from money, and had lots of sleepovers and pool parties.
Worst - Sponge rollers. I'm sure cheerleaders and dancers can relate.
5. KittanLuvr was in a cutthroat world of attempted sabotage.
I remember there being a huge plate of Oreos backstage and none of the other girls were eating them. I thought 'wow, I am so lucky. I'm going to eat all of them.' Before I get to the plate my Mom came backstage and saw what I was about to do, she told me 'those were put there because they know Oreos will f*ck up your smile.. it's a trick, don't eat them.'
That kind of sucked.
6. She also has a talent for roasting.
Another time I was 5 and this bratty little girl who's family obviously had tons of money ran up to me and said 'You're no competition to me, you're UGLY.' My 5 year old mind snapped back so quickly and said 'You're the ugly one, fat nose,' making my entire family and families around me laugh while she ran away obviously fighting back tears.
7. The twist? gangrenous_ghoul is a GUY.
Here's a shocker. My mom forced me to do a BOYS youth pageant. I seriously have no idea what the hell she was thinking. But I remember a lot of boys showing up for the practices and whatnot. The grand prize was a HUGE, massive collection of 1000 matchbox/hot wheels cars.
I remember thinking that was really cool because I was only like 6 years old at the time. Then time for the pageant came and went to the elementary school auditorium. I wore a little black tuxedo with a carnation. When I arrived there was only one other boy there.
8. Only in the pageant world is the age of ten considered 'old age,' makemeastar.
I was in a pageant once. Kind of an old age. I was ten. I realized that I sucked at speaking on the spot. In the interview part, I came up with a crappy answer to 'If you had one wish, what would it be?' I said... Ummm well, I'd have to say a million dollars. I SHOULD HAVE SAID WORLD PEACE!
But I would have hated myself even more if I would have done that. But it was really fun because I was asked to come back as an escort for an older category pageant and that was really fun! It wasn't a glitz pageant and it was really small. I mean, there were only six trophies and five participants. I thought it was fun. It wasn't scarring at all and my mom was, for the most part, normal through out the whole thing.
9. Welcome to puberty, sonnejotunn. It only gets worse from here.
I was just starting to go through puberty and I had progressed out of the stick-thin stage a lot of young girls go through in childhood. One of the 'pageant moms' walked up to me when I was getting dressed and pinched my stomach, hard.
'What's that,' she said, smirking, 'a little bit of FLAB?'
Until that day I never felt self-conscious about my body before. She told me the judges wouldn't like me if I didn't 'cut down on the doughnuts, princess!'
I was in tears. I never went back. I was having fun pretending to be a princess and they made me feel worthless just because my body was changing and I wasn't thin as a rail anymore.
10. Honesty is the best policy, imemanon.
I was in a pageant actually 2 months ago and my division was ages 16-19. We were asked a question on stage that we had to answer. The question was what was our biggest goal in life.
Everyone said stuff like 'I want to go to college' or 'I want to be myself' but this one girl walks up in her ball gown and straight up says, in front of an audience of about 200 people, 'I want to stop doing drugs' and did her model walk all cheerful and walked off stage like it was not big deal.