Reality Rumors

MTV has announced Pageant Place, a new Donald Trump-produced reality series that will follow several beauty queens as they live together in a New York City apartment and represent their different crowns, will premiere Wednesday, October 10 at 10:30PM ET/PT.

Current Miss Universe Riyo Mori and Miss USA Rachel Smith as well as former Miss Teen USA Katie Blair will star in Pageant Place, which captured the beauty queens’ daily lives during their respective reigns this past summer. Pageant Place’s season will also eventually feature Hilary Cruz — who was crowned Miss Teen USA 2007 last month — moving in with Mori and Smith and adjusting to the spotlight that comes with being Blair’s successor.

While the women coexisting together isn’t new — as they normally live together during their yearlong reign — this will be the first time viewers will be invited inside to witness some royal cattiness.

In addition, The Donald will also make regular appearances on Pageant Place to keep the beauty queens on track and in check, similar to the way he handled the January controversy surrounding former Miss USA Tara Conner’s underage drinking.

Instead of taking Conner’s crown away, Trump announced she would keep her title and attend an in-patient substance abuse rehabilitation center. Conner — now 21 years old — will also be of part Pageant Place’s cast and serve as the beauty queens’ “unofficial peer advisor.”

The previously announced eight-episode series is being produced via Trump Productions (which Trump launched last summer), Evolution Film & Tape, Inc. and the Miss Universe Organization.

In addition to Trump, Andy Litinsky (the former The Apprentice 2 contestant that Trump hired to run his own production company last year), Miss Universe Organization president Paula Shugart and Evolution’s Douglas Ross, Greg Stewart and Kathleen French will serve as executive producers.

Donald Trump and MTV have teamed-up to develop Pageant Place, a new reality series that will follow current Miss Universe Riyo Mori, Miss USA Rachel Smith and Miss Teen USA Katie Blair as they live together in a New York City apartment and represent their different crowns, Daily Variety reported Wednesday. 

The three women coexisting together isn’t new, as they normally live together during their yearlong reign.  However this will be the first time viewers will be invited inside to witness some royal cattiness.

“What’s great is that we’re not bringing them together — we’re tapping into a real situation,” MTV programming head Tony DiSanto told Variety.

Pageant Place will be produced via Trump Productions, which was launched last summer.  Trump  will  executive produce Pageant Place along with Trump Productions president Andy Litinsky, the former The Apprentice 2 contestant that Trump hired to run his own production company last year; Miss Universe Organization president Paula Shugart; and Evolution Film & Tape’s Doug Ross, Variety reported.

While Pageant Place will share “some similarities” with NBC’s The Apprentice, Variety reported it will be more akin to MTV’s The Real World.

“We won’t have any competitions or eliminations,” Litinsky told Variety.  “We don’t need any of that because there’s already so much here.  It’s all real.”

According to Variety, Pageant Place’s producers had originally been working with MTV’s VH1 sister network before MTV Networks — feeling the program will do well in the young female demographic — decided to shift it to its younger-skewing flagship cable network.