Alysha Castonguay Photo Controversy

By Jessica Madison on May 11th, 2009

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Helping spur forward the never-ending Carrie “Miss California” Prejean controversy — restarted last week after revealing photos of her were posted online — is the fact that rival pageant contestant Alysha Castonguay (Miss Rhode Island) it turns out is also featured in some racy, semi-nude pictures. These photos were not leaked however — as Prejean’s were — but rather were published earlier this year by the men’s magazine Maxim. In the photos the 22-year-old Castonguay is seen holding her bare breasts wearing nothing else but extra-short jean shorts while two men watch from a pickup truck. Classy stuff.

Now revealing pictures of models and pageant contestants are nothing new and usually not all that news worthy. What makes this an exception is the fact that pageant member Carrie Prejean had just received so much flack when her photos came out last week. In case you don’t recall, Prejean had previously made headlines when her conservative and Christian answer on gay-marriage made her an enemy of pageant judge Perez Hilton. Which of course turned to cries of hypocrisy after her topless pictures came out. And now Miss USA Pageant officials are threatening to take her crown.

Castonguay however is not in danger of losing her crown or of being reprimanded by pageant officials. The reason? She submitted her pictures to the pageant committee ahead of time and the committee approved them. Prejean supporters see this as blatant hypocrisy on the part of pageant officials, as they approved Castonguay’s published photos but are castigating Prejean for her “leaked” photos.

Critics on the other hand point to the fact that Castonguay submitted her pictures for approval whereas Prejean did not — and that that is the reason pageant officials are acting differently.