Miss USA Out of Rehab

Miss USA Out of Rehab
by Natalie Finn
Mon, 22 Jan 2007 08:25:00 PM PST
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When Tara Conner puts her tiara back on, she'll have a clean, dry surface on which to place it.

The reigning Miss USA checked out of a Pennsylvania rehab facility Sunday and is back at her Trump Place apartment, a rep for the Miss Universe Organization confirmed.

Spokeswoman Lark-Marie Anton, however, denied a report that Conner was planning on attending a welcome back party at NYC nightspot Stereo, a locale where the 21-year-old was once spotted consuming alcohol and engaging in other behavior unbecoming of a pageant winner.

"Right now she's just going to get used to being out," a source close to the situation told the New York Daily News. "She needs some time to breathe."

After almost losing her crown last month in the wake of reports that chronicled her underage hard-partying ways, Conner, who has denied being an alcoholic, spent the past few weeks mulling over where she went wrong at the Caron Foundation in Wernersville, Pennsylvania.

Miss Universe co-owner Donald Trump, who deigned to give Conner a second chance if she promised to enter rehab to get herself straightened out, predicted that the Kentucky native would be the "great comeback kid."

"You'll never know how much I appreciate Mr. Trump for saving me on this one," Conner said after the press conference in which Trump chose not to utter his trademark phrase. "He could have said 'You're Fired'—he's a very, very compassionate person."

That's not exactly how Rosie O'Donnell put it, but...Now it's up to Conner to prove Trump right.

In what has been an oddly eventful year for the Miss Universe Organization, the Conner situation kicked off a series of scandals that has resulted in at least one dropped endorsement deal and two dropped beauty queens.

Spotted canoodling with Conner as she made the Manhattan nightclub circuit was Miss Teen USA Katie Blair, 18, who was allowed to keep her crown but was booted by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which no longer considered her an "effective spokesperson on underage drinking."

Then, that same week, naughty pictures surfaced on the Internet depicting Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees in some party-hearty poses, a snafu that led to her dismissal. The 22-year-old has since proved that to reign isn't always to win, signing a $2 million deal to host the sex-charged Beacher's Madhouse revue when it returns to Las Vegas' Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in March.

And then, since these things apparently happen in, well, fours, Miss New Jersey USA Ashley Harder, 20, resigned after announcing that she was expecting a child with her boyfriend. Participants in the Miss USA Pageant, which will take place Mar. 23 without Harder and Rees, are not allowed to be pregnant or married or to have children