As someone who has competed in pageants for years, Danielle Halley is the perfect person to explain that world; the good, the misconceptions about it and more.
(In one of my favorite quotes ever, the incredibly perceptive Chris Cornell, one of the most astute students of the human condition you’ll ever meet, famously said great lead singers don’t come from the cool kids, they come from outcasts.
Dannielle Halley is further proof that can be true in multiple walks of life. The magnetic Halley showcases her star power and charisma not in a musical setting, but as a literal beauty queen. Halley, who has been competing in pageants since she was 17, recently won the title at Swimsuit USA and finished in the top 10 at Miss Nevada.
Halley is stunningly beautiful, but a graduate with an engineering degree from the University of Connecticut, she is so much more. As such, she is a perfect person to explain the mysterious world of pageants. Like most people in 2025, that world is an enigma to me, so when the opportunity arose for Halley to pen a first-person account of her life in that scene, it was far too interesting to pass up.
The tale she tells is a fascinating one of being a shy, quiet kid who blossomed in that world, of camaraderie, and more. – Steve Baltin)
I grew up in Plainfield, a small town in Connecticut. We moved there when I was probably about four and one thing about small towns is everyone knows each other, or families are raised there typically for generations. So, we were these weird people from Vegas that no one knew, so I was definitely not popular. I was also really good in school. So, that automatically left me out of the cool kids club.
I was pretty shy. I actually graduated high school early had the worst case of senioritis because people knew just like how badly I wanted to get out of that town and that culture because I was definitely not very popular. I was very quiet and much more reserved.
My mom put me in modeling when I was about 16 or 17, right when I got my braces off, to loosen me up a little bit because she was like, “You were so shy I just had to show you that there’s more to life outside of Plainfield and that people do appreciate you and you are beautiful.
