Former Miss North Carolina USA, Brittany Boltinhouse, made headlines just a few weeks ago when the pageant queen was stripped of her title just over one month after her win on Aug. 5.
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On Aug. 23, PEOPLE reported that Boltinhouse had filed a civil suit in Duplin County Superior Court against the Miss USA organization, its chairman, Thom Brodeur, and the North Carolina pageant operators, Blaize Productions.
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Craig Weiner, a litigation partner at Blank Rome, spoke exclusively with PEOPLE, breaking down what goes into a defamation lawsuit like Boltinhouse’s, what grounds Boltinhouse has to make her case and what makes this particular case different from other defamation cases.
Does Boltinhouse have a chance of winning the case?
According to Weiner, Boltinhouse does have “a chance of winning” the case; however, he anticipates that there are a few key aspects the defendants might argue in order to counter Boltinhouse’s claims.
Weiner tells PEOPLE that he anticipates that the defendants in the case — the Miss USA organization, Brodeur, Blaize Productions and Nic and Ariana Blaize (pageant organizers) — will argue that the statements they made are “protected opinion” rather than “actionable assertions of fact.”
According to Weiner, case law exists that supports the notion that opinions that “do not imply undisclosed defamatory facts are generally not actionable.”
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“Legal Expert Weighs in on Former Miss NC USA’s Defamation Lawsuit against Pageant and How It Could Play Out,” by Tabitha Parent was published in People on August 25, 2026.