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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A newly posted video of Miss Kansas calling out her domestic violence abuser from the stage the night she was crowned is whipping up a maelstrom of support on social media.
Alexis Smith, who works overnight shifts as a cardiothoracic intensive care nurse in Wichita, was crowned Miss Kansas on June 8, but posted the video of her on-stage comments just this past week on the platform now known as X. Her comments are resonating with thousands in part because she called out her own abuser from the stage while she said the perpetrator was sitting in the audience.
The video Smith posted July 16 has been viewed more than 60,000 times and generated a rash of news stories.
“My vision as the next Miss Kansas is to eliminate unhealthy and abusive relationships,” Smith said during the interview portion of the pageant last month. “Matter of fact, some of you in this audience saw me very emotional because my abuser is here today. But that’s not going to stop me from being on this Miss Kansas stage and from representing as the next Miss Kansas.”
Smith just recently started her reign and began raising concerns about the issue in interviews and social media posts. Her bold pageant statement against domestic abuse and her courage to speak out is being praised online by dozens of people as her video gets shared again and again.
The beauty queen cares deeply about domestic violence issues because not only was she a victim, but so were many of the other women in her family, she has said.
“My family, every single woman in my family, was impacted by domestic violence,” she said in an interview with Wichita television station KSN. “At the age of 14, I got in my first relationship, but it was also an abusive relationship that I was in until about 2018, 2019. It’s something that I’m still experiencing and dealing with today.”
Smith said she even moved to Texas for a couple years after she escaped the relationship. She returned to Wichita to study nursing at Newman University.
