The beauty queen representing New York in Thursday night’s Miss USA pageant is a 27-year-old Bronx-born portrait artist, who also has a second-degree black belt in taekwondo.
Lehman College graduate student Florinda Kajtazi will be among the 51 hopefuls from every state and DC, vying for the crown at the contest in Reno, Nevada.
Her competitors include a psychological operations expert in the Army reserves from Virginia, a lawyer who represents prisoners for free from North Carolina and an ex-NFL cheerleader working to become a surgical nurse from Mississippi.
Tonight’s winner will be crowned by current Miss USA Sarah Rose Summers — who was at the center of controversy during her tenure, when she was caught on video mocking beauty queens who don’t speak English during the Miss Universe pageant in Bangkok.
The judges this year are all women and include Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve. Vanessa and Nick Lachey will serve as hosts.
President Trump used to own the Miss Universe Organization, which ran the Miss USA pageant with NBCUniversal. The network cut ties with him in 2015 over anti-immigrant remarks he made when announcing his 2015 presidential bid.
Trump sued the network and eventually ended up selling the pageant to a talent management company now called Endeavor.
With Post wires