Shanna Moakler: Former Miss USA, Outspoken Supporter of Equality, “Elated” Same Sex Marriage Passes in N.Y., Talks DWTS, More
Shanna Moakler has enjoyed a career in pageants, acting and dancing. Currently, Ms. Moakler is using her talents to help other women succeed in their lives. The former Miss New York and 1995 Miss USA is sharing the experience and knowledge she’s gained as state director for the Miss California, Miss New York and Miss New Hampshire pageants with pageant hopefuls.
Listen to the entire Shanna Moakler interview:
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Moakler is celebrating this week because Miss California Alyssa Campanella recently won the Miss USA pageant. Shanna fills us in on how she got Alyssa ready for the big pageant and what we should know about her:
“We’re just kind of celebrating and over the moon and we’re really, really excited. It’s been a lot of hard work and many years and trying to do this. So we’re just super excited…She was my babe [Alyssa Campanella]. She’s my kid and I worked really hard with her. So I’m just so thrilled and so excited for her and all the opportunities that lay ahead. I’m so proud of her. We worked on her, I mean you name it, walking, talking, evening gowns, swimsuits, it’s like a big task…She’s [Alyssa] a really down to earth kid. She’s really humble. She kinda labels herself like a history buff or science geek…She’s just a really smart, beautiful young woman. She’s a really good kid.”
Moakler has been around the modeling and pageant world for a long time. The former Miss USA shares with CYInterview some precautions for aspiring pageant contestants and models:
“The first thing is just taking the steps to do it…They’re usually photographers that will shoot you for free to build up your book to get pictures…I think what people should be looking out for is anyone who’s claiming that they can make you a star overnight or usually when they’re coming to you with some sort of proposition that just seems way too good to be true, it’s usually too good to be true. Especially younger girls, it’s important to have someone go with you when you first starting going on auditions and castings. I think it’s important to have a chaperone or just a friend go with you, tag along with you until you get a good feeling for the system in the industry.”
Shanna says motherhood is going great. She’s mom to 12 year old daughter Atiana, from a former relationship with boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya; 7 year old son Landon and 5 year old daughter Alabama, both from her prior relationship with musician Travis Barker. Moakler is getting ready to go on the road with her entire family for ex-husband Travis’s Blink 182 tour. Moakler shares with us how she’s been able to balance things out after divorce.
“They’re awesome. We’re all together here right now. Shortly will be heading out on tour on the road with Travis with Blink 182…Travis and I love really hard and we fight really hard, but at the end of the day, I think he and I are main priorities are to be great parents and sometimes you just have to put your differences aside so that you can give your children the life that you’ve always dreamt for them. We try really hard to work with each other’s schedules. He tours and depending if I’m working at the time or not, like last year he was on tour in Europe and I was filming Bridalplasty.
So that made it difficult because we were so far away from each other. I’m excited about this tour and I love when the whole family is together and on tour. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a different lifestyle and it’s definitely not for everybody, but it works. It works for our family. I guess when that’s your work and that’s your life you just do what you have to do.”
Moakler’s daughters Atiana and Alabama are already on the beauty pageant circuit. She says it has been a great family thing for everyone:
“We don’t get too crazy about it. It’s just something that we enjoy as moms and daughters doing together. My little girls are just kind of those girls. They love makeup. They love dressing up. They love modeling and taking pictures. They just love being girly girls. So it’s just something that we do together that’s a lot of fun and it’s not, we don’t make it too intense or too competitive. We just go more so not so much for trophies and crowns, but more to go meet other little girls and play, meet other moms. It’s just a fun activity we enjoy.”
Shanna tells us how beauty pageants have changed since she became Miss USA in 1995. She says today’s pageant girls are showing the public who they really are:
“When I was crowned, I feel there were a lot of, I don’t know how to explain it, it was a little bit more traditional in the sense even in the way they produced the pageant and I think there was just kind of a confusion when I competed on what exactly, what a queen defined. I think what’s gone on now is that the women have actually started being very proactive in defining themselves.”
In 2006, Moakler joined season two of Dancing with the Stars. It was relatively early in the show’s history and no one knew if it would have staying power. Whatever the case, the former Miss USA says she had just given birth to Alabama six months prior to going on the show and didn’t feel like her dancing was judged fairly. She would like to see DWTS do a season where celebrity dancers get to come back for a second chance at winning the mirror ball trophy.
“I just had Alabama. She was about six months old. I wasn’t really feeling like my sexy self, which I think when you’re on that show and you’re competing you kind really need to feel pretty confident. I wish I had a chance to show more what I could do. I don’t feel like I was judged fairly on my dancing. There were people that were way worse than me, but I had so much fun and I have a lot of people from the Dancing with the Stars family that I still stay in contact with. I made some great friends and that was such a very positive, fun experience that I would love to do again.”
A former Miss New York, Moakler has become an equal rights marriage activist in recent years. She told me how excited she was to see New York legalize same sex marriage.
“I was so excited. Just so elated and excited. I think when you have a big state like New York making such a powerful statement, they become leaders and I’m hoping that other states will follow suit and hopefully New York can also show the world, show people that this isn’t not gonna destroy society. This is not gonna ruin our social world. So I’m thrilled. I wish I had been in the city.”
As far as what we should know about her life today, Shanna says she is striving, daily, to be a better person and believes she still has a lot of talent to show the world.
“I definitely don’t want people believing everything they read in tabloids. I guess I would like people to know that I’m constantly striving to be a better person and I’m constantly striving to grow. I really enjoy helping other people and I’m not just a reality, part TV show personality. I actually do have talent and I hope I get the opportunity to show it to the world.”
People in the public eye are often targeted by anonymous individuals who say negative things about them on the Internet. Ms. Moakler is no stranger to this. She believes the negativity stems from the candor she’s expressed throughout her career, as well as standing up for causes like equality.
“I haven’t ever really censored myself and my opinions for anybody. I think especially going through the whole Carrie Prejean scandal that we went through, I didn’t make a lot of friends, but at the same time I think sometimes when you have to fight for what’s right, there’s a lot of people that don’t agree with you and or maybe don’t even like the way that you’re fighting for what you feel is right, but that’s not something I look at as a deter me from what I think. Equality is important and if people are going to hate me because I stand up for equality, well than I guess that’s what I have to do. I deal with that a lot in my life.”
Shanna Moakler’s official website is at http://www.shannamoakler.com
Shanna Moakler’s official Twitter is at http://twitter.com/#!/shannamoakler
Shanna Moakler’s Facebook page is at http://www.facebook.com/OfficialShannaMoakler?ref=ts
You can email Chris Yandek at ChrisYandek@CYInterview.com
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