Rachelle McCray Talks Beauty Pageants And Advises Future Contestants

What comes to mind when you think of pageants? Over the past years, the world of competitive beauty contests has grown exponentially over the past decade. Reality TV and cable programming have brought contestants to the small screen, debuting the debutantes to audiences all over the world. However, the pastime continues to earn a bad reputation from outsiders who don't understand what the pageants are all about.

Luckily, Rachelle McCray is ready to clear up those misconceptions.

Once crowned as Miss Arizona, McCray is a seasoned beauty competitors who's entered dozens of pageants. She began her career when she was just a teenager, and her lengthy resume led McCray to take part in The CW's Crowned: The Mother of All Pageants in 2007. I had the chance to speak with McCray recently about her pageant days in a recent interview, and the lauded contestant revealed her journey to the crown was a bumpy one.

"It's so hard. Being in high school is so hard and I was struggling with my self-confidence," McCray said, looking back to her teenage years. "I was struggling with things that normal teenagers go through and I saw a flyer on a bulletin board that said, 'Do you want to be the next Miss Teen Arizona USA?' I thought,'Yeah, I do.' I came home with this flyer and my mom was like, 'You're not doing pageants. They're not good for you. They're not going to help you.'"

However, McCray took initiative into her own hands and entered the contest anyways. "I did it all on my own," she said. "I didn't do well my first pageant. I won a swimsuit award. I didn't even make top 15. I'd bought a dress from Dillard's, at the time, was like $50. I wasn't a competitor. I had no idea what I was doing."

Despite her rocky entrance into beauty pageants, McCray said her first experience was an important one as it showed her she could step outside of her comfort zone. "What I gained that day was the opportunity to experience something, number one, out of my comfort zone. The opportunity to meet new people and to realize, especially back then."

Of course, McCray did reference the public's negative view of pageants. Shows like Toddlers & Tiaras have given people a very one-sided look into a rather crazed side of beauty contests, and McCray wishes the events didn't have such a bad rap.

"I wish that pageants had gotten a little bit of a better rap, but you know, in today's social media and television, they've kind of been pushed ... You only see the bad. You don't really get to see all the good that they do."

McCray continued and gave advice to give to prospective beauty competitors who are hesitant to enter their first pageant. "I think for girls that really want to do it, you need to find what suits you and what fits your lifestyle and what fits your beliefs and your goals in life and what you want to do."

"The main thing I would say to a young lady, especially in her first pageant, or any pageant, even people who have been doing it their whole lives, you've got to have fun. You can't take it too seriously. Man, you've just got to go out there and be proud of whatever you do. Do your best and whatever happens, happens. That's kind of the way that it goes."