Miss USA Tara Conner, who was given a second chance by Donald Trump to set right her wild partying ways, in an interview on NBC's
Today show on Wednesday, admitted she had been a cocaine addict.
“I have done cocaine, yeah,” the 21-year-old blond admitted to host Matt Lauer in the first interview after the threat of loss of her crown forced her into a month-long rehab session. In another interview to
People magazine, Conner said: “Cocaine was one of the drugs that I did use. It's hard to look back at that. I was an equal-opportunity (user) – I would try anything once.”
The Miss USA 2006 fell in the eye of the storm when in December last year, rumors of her hard partying and underage drinking started swirling around, with Miss USA pageant owner Miss Universe Organization, which is owned by Donald Trump, contemplating taking her crown away due to her behavior.
Meanwhile, rumors of her testing positive for cocaine, kissing Miss Teen USA Katie Blair in public and taking men into her apartment also gathered steam, sparking off speculation that Trump was ready to give Conner the boot. However, the business tycoon decided to give the Miss USA a second chance provided she entered alcohol and drug rehabilitation clinic Caron Foundation in Pennsylvania, which Conner did in December last year.
Conner had largely kept mum about her addiction and wild partying ways until now. She said to Lauer that her decision to speak up stemmed from her need to get 'it off my chest'. “In being honest with you, at first I kind of held back on it a little bit but there's no sense in it. Luckily, the great thing about getting everything out, and being completely open and honest about things, it frees me from it. So the more I get it off my chest, the better I feel about myself. It's not healthy for my recovery to sit here and hold things back,” she said in the interview.
Conner also revealed that her wild ways had started young and she had had her first drink at the age of 14. “Things started unraveling for me very early, at a very young age. Probably about around 14. I have the disease of alcoholism and addiction,” the Miss USA said. She left the rehab facility on January 21 and has now been shifted from the Trump Tower apartment to a Manhattan home where she stays with a 'chaperone', a spokesperson for the Miss Universe Organization said. The mouthpiece, however, said it was the norm to have a minder and had nothing to do with Conner's past antics.
The spokesperson also cleared the air on speculations that Conner was to pose in the buff for
Playboy magazine. “There was as a conversation between with Trump and
Playboy, but this is not something that Tara wants to do at this point in time. She feels it is inappropriate,” she said.
