Miss USA Elle Smith stated that it was powerful to win with her natural hair

• Miss Kentucky Elle Smith was crowned Miss USA Monday night.
• Smith said that Insider felt the same. “bold and powerful”To win the crown with her natural hair.
• Smith claimed she was inspired to be Miss USA 2019 CheslieKryst because she won with her natural hair.

Elle Smith knew that she would wear her natural hair when she entered her first pageant six months ago.

Smith, who represented Kentucky when she won the Miss USA crown Monday night, told Insider she’s “so happy to be representative to that community.”

“Girl, I did it!”Smith, 23, laughed when asked how it felt to win with her natural hair. “It’s bold, it’s powerful, it says that I’m here. Representation is so incredibly important.”

Smith attributes her confidence in competing with her natural hair to Cheslie Kryst (Miss USA 2019).

“When I saw Cheslie win with her natural hair, I’m thinking, ‘OK, I can do it as well,'”She continued. “I wanted to do it immediately.”

Kryst — who took her title the same year Kaliegh Harris won Miss Teen USA with her natural curls — previously told Refinery29She was “a little bit worried and anxious”About wearing her natural hair to the pageant stage.

“Although more women are competing with natural hair nowadays, there still aren’t many,”She spoke on the site in May 2019. “But I thought, ‘I want to do it as the most real and authentic me,’ and that’s really what my hair represents.”

Kryst was the Miss USA crown winner. Miss South Africa Zozibini Tuzi became Miss Universe for the first time with naturally textured hair, just months after Kryst.

Tunzi stated to Insider that several people tried to convince her to enter the pageant wearing a wig.

“I was like, ‘No, you know what, I’m going to do it the way I am, because I’ve been with my natural hair for the past three years,”Tunzi stated. “I don’t see why I should change it just because I’m stepping into another platform.”

“I’m saying beauty does not look one certain way,”She continued. “I’m telling women, you can be beautiful too if you want to. You can stand up and say, ‘I’m beautiful the way that I am, with the shape that I am, with the skin color that I have, with the freckles that I have.'”

Smith also spoke out about inclusion in pageant life, telling Insider Monday what she thinks needs to be changed.

“At Miss USA, we have been so inclusive to different ethnicities and different races,”She spoke. “But more or less, we all look very similar. And I think, if we want to be representative of women as a whole, then we’ve got to be more inclusive to all body types. And that transcends across the Miss USA pageant into other pageant systems as well.”