Elle Smith Biography: Miss USA 2021 Winner, Journalist and Model

Elle Smith didn’t fit the usual pageant mold: she was a working television reporter in Louisville when she entered — and won — her first pageant in 2021, according to the Louisville newspaper The Courier Journal. By November 29 of that year, she had been crowned Miss USA, only the second Kentucky woman to take the title in the pageant’s history, per NPR.

Born: June 19, 1998 (Springfield, Ohio) ·
Title: Miss USA 2021 ·
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky, USA ·
Education: University of Kentucky ·
Profession: Journalist and model ·
Instagram: 162K+ followers

Seven facts, one pattern: the pageant résumé and the journalism résumé developed at the same time, and each one reinforced the other.

Who is Elle Smith and what is she known for?

Elle Smith is an American journalist, model, and beauty pageant titleholder. She is also one of the rare Miss USA winners who walked into the competition with a full-time reporting job — and made the title a chapter in a media career rather than the whole book.

Born on June 19, 1998 in Springfield, Ohio, she grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, where the path to a crown ran through a newsroom, not a pageant coach.

Early life and education

• University of Kentucky, B.A. in broadcast journalism, minor in political science, Class of 2020
• Vice president of the University of Kentucky chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists
• Journalism internships plus a Fox News college associate placement in Washington, D.C.

Smith chose a practical major with a public-facing twist: broadcast journalism, with a minor in political science. Her campus leadership role with the National Association of Black Journalists gave her an early professional network, and the Washington, D.C., placement gave her a taste of national reporting.

Career milestones: from journalism to Miss USA

TV reporter: since 2020 · Miss Kentucky USA: May 2021 · Miss USA: Nov 2021 · Miss Universe: Top 10

Smith joined WHAS-TV in Louisville as a multimedia journalist in October 2020 (Seventeen). She had been in the job less than a year when she entered her first pageant: the Miss Kentucky USA competition, representing the Germantown neighborhood of Louisville. She won the state title in May 2021 — her first pageant ever — and then took Miss USA in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on November 29, 2021. Public radio outlet NPR noted the rarity: only the second Kentucky woman to take the title.

At Miss Universe 2021 in Eilat, Israel, she placed in the Top 10 — a strong finish for a first-year contestant.

Post-pageant work

• Continued working in television after the crown
• Modeling with Wilhelmina Models
• Cervical-cancer awareness and prevention, a personal advocacy cause

Smith did not treat the crown as a pivot out of journalism. She kept working in television, stacked modeling assignments — represented by Wilhelmina Models — alongside reporting, and used her platform for advocacy. Her grandmother died of cervical cancer in 2015, and Smith has since pointed to cervical-cancer awareness and prevention as a cause rooted in that family history, as reported by Alabama news site AL.com.

The implication: her journalism training gave her a visible edge — she was comfortable asking questions on camera long before she stood on a pageant stage.

What is Elle Smith’s ethnicity?

Smith is biracial — African American and Caucasian. She has described her background in those terms in interviews, and coverage of her win echoes the description; what does not exist is a formal, standalone statement about her racial identity.

Details from public records

• Biracial background: African American and Caucasian
• Hometown and base: Louisville, Kentucky
• Education: University of Kentucky, broadcast journalism (2020)

Cultural background and heritage

• Served as vice president of the University of Kentucky chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists
• Advocacy rooted in family: cervical-cancer awareness after her grandmother’s death in 2015

The most concrete signal of how Smith sees her identity is professional rather than personal. She chose to lead within the National Association of Black Journalists at a formative moment in her education — a fact that says something about her place in journalism before the crown existed.

What this means: the ethnicity question has a clear public answer — biracial — but the fuller story of how that identity shaped her career has not yet been told on the record.

Is Leah Williamson in a relationship with Elle Smith?

The short answer: it is the most-searched question about Smith, and it remains unconfirmed. Smith and England soccer star Leah Williamson have been publicly linked since 2023; neither woman has confirmed or denied the relationship.

Timeline of the rumored relationship

• 2023: Smith and Williamson first linked in fan and media speculation
• 2023 to present: no public statement from either woman
• Geography is part of the puzzle: Williamson is based in England, and the reporting that linked them placed Smith in New York

Public appearances together

• No confirmed joint public appearances have been documented
• No engagement or marriage announcement; the connection, if real, has stayed private
• Search interest stays high: “Leah Williamson girlfriend Elle Smith” is one of the most common versions of the query

How long have Leah Williamson and Elle Smith been together?

• Public speculation places the start of the relationship in 2023
• Exact start date: unknown
• Current status: unconfirmed

If the timeline that fueled the speculation is right, the two have been connected since 2023. Beyond that, the documented record is thin: no confirmation, no denial, and no public timeline.

The catch: until Smith or Williamson speaks, the relationship stays in the rumor column — and coverage that states it as fact is outrunning the evidence.

Who has won Miss USA in the last 10 years?

The last decade of Miss USA produced a striking run of winners — military officers, lawyers, journalists, and engineers — and the title itself changed hands more than once when a winner moved on to Miss Universe.

List of winners (2014–2024)

Eleven titleholders, one throughline: the crown keeps landing on women who already had a career beyond the runway.

Gankiewicz’s 2023 title came with a twist: she was crowned after the original winner resigned mid-reign. The 2022 title also passed from R’Bonney Gabriel to Morgan Romano after Gabriel won Miss Universe.

Notable titleholders and their careers

• Deshauna Barber (2016) served as a U.S. Army officer during her reign
• Cheslie Kryst (2019) worked as an attorney and later a TV correspondent
• Elle Smith (2021) returned to broadcast journalism
• Alma Cooper (2024) was serving as a U.S. Army officer when she won

The pattern holds across the decade: the title has increasingly been a credential on top of a career, not a substitute for one.

What this means: for anyone asking whether a Miss USA win launches a career, the past decade says the opposite — the winners mostly arrived with careers already in motion.

Does Donald Trump own Miss USA?

No — and the answer has been no since 2015. Trump co-owned the Miss Universe Organization, which also ran Miss USA, before selling it to IMG/Endeavor.

Trump’s former ownership of the Miss Universe Organization

• Co-owned the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants until 2015
• Miss USA was part of the Miss Universe Organization, not a separate company
• 2015: sale to IMG, now part of Endeavor

The sale followed Trump’s controversial comments about Mexican immigrants during his 2015 presidential campaign announcement. The backlash cost the pageants their major network partnerships, and the organization was sold rather than kept.

Why did Donald Trump sell Miss Universe?

• Broadcast partners dropped the pageants after the comments
• IMG/Endeavor acquired the organization in 2015
• Miss USA and Miss Universe have operated under that ownership since

For Trump, the calculation was straightforward: a pageant empire without major broadcast support was worth less than a pageant empire with a global talent agency behind it. The sale closed the chapter on his direct involvement with the crowns.

The takeaway: every “Trump owns Miss USA” search remembers a real but finished era — the answer today is no.

Has a Miss USA ever won Miss Universe?

Yes — nine times across seven decades. The most recent were Olivia Culpo in 2012 and R’Bonney Gabriel in 2022.

List of Miss USA winners who also won Miss Universe

• Miriam Stevenson (1954), Carol Morris (1956), Linda Bement (1960)
• Sylvia Hitchcock (1967), Shawn Weatherly (1980)
• Chelsi Smith (1995), Brook Lee (1997)
• Olivia Culpo (2012), R’Bonney Gabriel (2022)

Most recent Miss Universe winners from the USA

• Olivia Culpo (Miss USA 2012) won Miss Universe 2012, ending a 15-year U.S. drought
• R’Bonney Gabriel (Miss USA 2022) won Miss Universe 2022, ending a 10-year wait

U.S. winners at Miss Universe have come in bursts rather than cycles: 15 years separated Brook Lee’s 1997 win from Culpo’s 2012 crown, and another 10 passed before Gabriel in 2022. For pageant fans, the lesson is direct — a Miss USA win is the strongest single pipeline to Miss Universe, but the global crown is never guaranteed.

The pattern: nine double-winners in roughly seven decades — rare, but repeatable, which is exactly why fans keep asking.

Elle Smith career timeline

Eight milestones, one trajectory: the journalism career started first, and the pageant career accelerated it instead of replacing it.

The pattern: every pageant milestone came after — not instead of — a journalism milestone.

What’s confirmed vs. what’s rumor

After sorting the record, the confirmed facts are clean, and the rumors are few — but loud.

The balance: the documented part of Smith’s life is public record; the rumored part lives mostly in search queries. They should not be confused.

Elle Smith in her own words

The record also contains Smith’s own explanation of why local journalism matters — a sentence that explains her better than any title does.

“Local journalism is important because journalists ask difficult questions, obtain answers, and educate communities.”

— Elle Smith, in reporting by Seventeen

Elle Smith entered her first beauty pageant in 2021 — and ended the same year as Miss USA.

— The Courier Journal, on the speed of her rise

Together, they frame the arc: a journalist who treated the pageant as one more story to cover — and ended up becoming the story.

The takeaway

Nothing about Smith’s résumé fits the usual pageant script: she studied journalism, worked local news, entered her first pageant in 2021, won it, and went back to the newsroom. The crown amplified a career that already existed. For young journalists without a pageant background, the implication is direct: build the craft first, then decide whether the crown is worth adding — a national title is a megaphone, but it only amplifies what’s already there.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

• Elle Smith: Biography, Miss USA, Relationship with Leah Williamson
• Elle Smith: Miss USA 2021, Journalist and Partner Leah Williamson