Gay Housemate: Miss Virginia Launched Homophobic Attack

The gay housemate of Miss Virginia USA, Nikki Poteet, says that Poteet subjected him, his boyfriend, and other guests at a party taking place at their shared residence in Richmond, VA, to a drunken tirade that included physical and verbal attacks, including anti-gay epithets.

Derek Powell told ThinkProgress that Poteet came home in the early hours of Oct. 29 with a man to find a party in progress, and grew upset that she didn't have the house to herself. Powell said that Poteet was drunk and that she became physically and verbally abusive.

ThinkProgress posted an article on the fracas on Nov. 1.

A letter from Powell to the Miss Universe Organization recounted the events of the 2:00 a.m. tirade, saying that Poteet grew "extremely violent and physical and proceeded to call me and my boyfriend 'faggots' and 'cocksuckers'." Powell also spoke with ThinkProgress, claiming that Poteet threatened, assaulted, and denigrated people and destroyed property.

"It's the first I've ever been subjected to hateful words and things like that based on people's sexuality," Powell said. "It just got me infuriated. Someone like her, who is supposed to be a role model for young girls to say things like that.

"People need to be held accountable for their words and their actions," Powell added.

"ThinkProgress spoke with two other attendees who confirmed Poteet's behavior and use of anti-gay slurs." the article said.

The beauty queen said that Powell's story was exaggerated, and suggested that she was not the one responsible for abusive conduct.

"One of his friends proceeded to say things that didn't need to be said," Poteet told the publication, going on to say that one of her best friends was gay.

When ThinkProgress presented Poteet with evidence that she had damaged Powell's property by ripping the door off a cabinet, the Miss Virginia titleholder "abruptly ended the conversation," the article said.

Powell's letter to the Miss Universe Organization likened the tirade to "a hate crime," and said that Powell was left "demoralized" in its aftermath.

"Her comments have outraged and insulted the gay people of Richmond and the community is upset that someone like her would represent the Commonwealth of Virginia," Powell wrote. "Many young girls look up to your organization and look at these title holders as role models. This is not the kind of person that you want representing your honorable organization."

Beauty queens and anti-gay commentary have made for a bad mix in the past. Miss Universe runner-up Carrie Prejean, who held the title of Miss California, was asked about marriage equality by openly gay judge and gossip blogger Perez Hilton during the April 19, 2009, contest, which was broadcast nationally as it unfolded in Las Vegas at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.

Hilton inquired as to whether Prejean thought that the question of marriage equality should be something that each state in the U.S. decides for itself; Prejean responded with a blanket statement that marriage should be reserved as a right exclusive to heterosexual couples.

Said the Miss USA contestant, "We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage," going on to say, "And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman.

"No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised," Prejean added.

Prejean subsequently lost the contest to Kristen Dalton, the contestant representing North Carolina. Prejean attributed the loss in an interview with right-wing media outlet Fox News to her response to Hilton's question.

The story might have fizzled immediately had it not been for an obscene rant from Hilton, who criticized Prejean for her response. The beauty queen instantly became the poster girl for the anti-gay religious right, who held her up as a victim of "gay intolerance."

But all was not clear sailing as Prejean undertook a new career as a professional spokesperson for traditional marriage: Prejean's employers, the organizers of the Miss USA pageant, fired her, claiming that she was not living up to her duties as the hold of the Miss California crown.

Moreover, the pageant organizers said, semi-nude photos of Prejean, taken when she was a teenager, violated the terms of her contract when they surfaced in the media along with a purported sex tape.

A man who said he was a former boyfriend of Prejean's alleged that Prejean had made numerous sex tapes, in which she appeared solo, for him--and also said that Prejean had asked him to lie on her behalf.

Prejean later became the defendant in a lawsuit brought against her by a "Christian-focused" public relations company that claimed Prejean had contracted their services to promote the "Biblically correct message" that gay and lesbian families should be denied civil equality, but then had never paid them for their work.