REALITY SHOW ROMANCE: MISS AMERICA ’08 SPILLS BEANS TO VEGAS CONFIDENTIAL
Miss America Kirsten Haglund, just back from the presidential inauguration, waves to the crowd at Wednesday’s preliminaries at Planet Hollywood Resort. (Photo courtesy Tom Donoghue/photoman4@cox.net)
Miss America Kirsten Haglund has met a special guy — through a reality show, no less — and he broke the rules to meet her.
Miss America organizers probably don’t approve of his methods, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.
Haglund couldn’t be happier that it happened.
Her mystery man will be joining her when her reign ends Saturday with the crowning of Miss America 2009 at Planet Hollywood Resort.
Haglund, 20, revealed the details for the first time Thursday during an interview with Vegas Confidential.
It happened in September when she was on Miss America business in Long Beach, Calif.
“He worked on the reality show,” said Haglund, referring to "Miss America: Countdown to the Crown," the four-part reality series currently airing on TLC.
“He’s a camera guy,” said Haglund, who’s not ready to go public with his name. “He picked me up from the airport. Production is not supposed to talk to talent.”
He made a big impression on the way back to the Queen Mary ocean liner, which served as home for the 52 Miss Contestants during the three weeks of taping.
They continued to see each other while he drove her to other events.
They hit it off and she was smitten.
“I never saw it coming,” said the former Miss Michigan.
It didn’t hurt that he had an interesting Miss America connection.
“He’s originally from Oklahoma and grew up in the same sub-division as Jennifer Berry,” the former Miss Oklahoma who won Miss America three years ago when the pageant moved to Las Vegas.
Haglund is concluding her reign on Cloud Nine.
She’s just returned from Washington, D.C. and the presidential inauguration and her beau is coming in for the pageant finals.
The inauguration was “pretty crazy but amazing,” she said.
Traffic snarls prevented him from singing the national anthem at the Commander in Chief Ball, but she stood nearby when he chatted with military personnel in Iraq via a satellite hookup.
“I was a little starstruck and I’m never starstruck,” she said.
She didn’t get to meet the President and First Lady – “nobody got within 50 feet of them” – but she was introduced to Jon Bon Jovi, George Lopez, Smokey Robinson and shared a dressing room with Jordin Sparks, who won “American Idol” in 2007.
The traffic jams were so bad that at one point she looked out the window of her vehicle and saw members of Metallica stuck in the chaos. “At least we got there. A lot of the performances didn’t go as planned. They were having problems with DC’ers who weren’t supposed to bring their personal vehicles.”
She made it to the Heroes Red, White and Blue Ball, which honored the "wounded warriors, the real celebrities," she said.
–NORM CLARKE, Vegas Confidential
