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Newly crowned Miss Kansas Alexis Smith is going viral for calling out her abuser on stage during her interview with judges at the Miss Kansas pageant.
While the incident went down in June, the video has since garnered over 65,000 views on X alone after Smith resurfaced the clip earlier this month.
“Some of you in this audience saw me very emotional because my abuser is here today,” said Smith, 25, on stage. “But that’s not going to stop me from being on this Miss Kansas stage because I, and my community, deserve healthy relationships.”
A month later, she shared more via Instagram, saying she hopes to inspire others by turning her “pain into purpose.”
“Instead of falling into silence, I chose to live out my vision for a better world,” she wrote in a July 12 post. I took back my power — not just for myself, but for my dreams and everyone watching and listening.”
With her viral moment taking on a new life six weeks after it happened, keep scrolling for five things to know about Miss Kansas, Alexis Smith.
Smith Was Only 14 When Her Abusive Relationship Began
Smith revealed in an interview with Wichita TV station KSN that she first entered into her abusive relationship at 14 years old and it lasted until “2018 or 2019.” Years later, she’s still dealing with the effects.
“It’s something that I’m still experiencing and dealing with today,” she said. “Domestic violence does not discriminate.”
She later explained to ABC News that she called her abuser out because she wanted him to know, “Yes, you’re on my mind right now, but you’re not going to take this opportunity away from me.”
The pageant queen moved to Texas after escaping the relationship before returning home to Wichita to study nursing at Newman University.
She Is an ICU Nurse
Smith graduated from Newman in 2023, according to her LinkedIn, and is now a cardiothoracic ICU nurse who works overnight shifts. She explained in an interview with the JJ Hayes Morning Show in Kansas that she works with “critically ill” patients recovering from cardiovascular surgeries.
The Miss Kansas pageant comes with a $15,000 scholarship that Smith revealed she will use to go back to Newman and work toward her CRNA (certified registered nurse anesthetist) degree.
She Is Using Her Platform to Help Other Victims of Domestic Violence
Smith is speaking up now to inspire others in abusive relationships to seek help. She launched the community service initiative “Respect Reclaimed: Advocating for Healthy Relationships” to help eliminate unhealthy and abusive relationships.
She explained via Instagram that the initiative is about “reclaiming your power and standing firmly in it.”
“I took advantage of the Miss Kansas Organization, which truly focuses on empowering women,” she told KSN. “And me, being a woman who needed that empowerment all my life, being a bystander to domestic violence, a victim, a survivor, and now an advocate as well as a young woman who is educationally driven, I have the opportunity not only to share my story on such a large scale but also go back to school.”
Smith Is a Ventriloquist
Smith first learned ventriloquism at age 6 and showed her skills in the talent portion of the Miss Kansas competition. A 2009 video has since surfaced on YouTube of an 11-year-old Smith performing a “duet” of Annie Get Your Gun’s “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)” with her ventriloquist dummy.
She learned the skill from her aunt, who she said was a “self-taught” ventriloquist.
She Was a Division I Cheerleader
Smith revealed in her interview with Hayes that she can “still tumble” and was a Division I cheerleader at Kansas State and then at Fort Hays State.
“I can still get down on the mat,” she said, adding she learned from her mother, a former cheerleader herself. “There are times where she’ll come down from Texas and we’ll just go tumble together.”
If you or someone you know are experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.
