Elle Smith: Miss USA 2021, Age, Partner, and Full Bio

Born: June 20, 1998 · Birthplace: Springfield, Ohio · Title: Miss USA 2021 · Home state: Kentucky · Agency: The Source Models · Notable credit: Jack Harlow Feat. Drake: Churchill Downs (2022)

Ten rows, one pattern: the public record is consistent on where she came from and what she won, but thin on the personal details searchers ask about most.

Who Is Elle Smith?

Elle Smith is a broadcast journalist, model, and the woman who turned her first pageant run into a national title. The win made her the third consecutive Black woman to hold Miss USA, according to the National Newspaper Publishers Association. It also made her an outlier in pageant history: Miss Kentucky USA 2021 was her first competition, per her alma mater’s journalism school.

What Title Did Elle Smith Win at Miss USA?

She won Miss USA 2021 representing Kentucky on November 29, 2021, at River Spirit Casino Resort in Tulsa, Oklahoma, per the timeline sources below.

That “first competition” detail does a lot of work. Smith entered Miss Kentucky USA in 2021, won it, and went straight to Miss USA — a route that normally takes years of pageant seasoning. By her own account (see the quotes below), she had wanted to try since high school, but she waited until she had a paying job to fund it.

The quick version of her bio: born in Ohio, educated in Kentucky, working in a Louisville newsroom when the pageant life found her. Her career before the crown was journalism; the crown arrived after.

What Is Elle Smith Known For?

• Winning Miss USA 2021 as Miss Kentucky USA — her first pageant entry.
• Placing in the Top 10 at Miss Universe 2021.
• Working as a multimedia journalist and reporter at WHAS-TV, the ABC affiliate in Louisville.
• Advocating for cervical-cancer awareness and prevention during her Miss USA run.
• Serving as vice president of her university’s National Association of Black Journalists chapter during her studies.
• Appearing in the 2022 video for Jack Harlow Feat. Drake: Churchill Downs, per entertainment-database credits.

The pattern: the crown made her famous, but the newsroom made her a professional.

Who Is Ellen Smith?

• News coverage and database profiles use “Elle Smith” for the Miss USA 2021 titleholder.
• People Also Ask data shows “Ellen Smith” gets searched too — but that spelling points to different public records.
• The verified pageant record uses “Elle,” not “Ellen.”

The distinction: change one letter and you leave this biography entirely.

What Is Poor Ellen Smith About?

• “Poor Ellen Smith” is a traditional ballad subject, not the Kentucky titleholder.
• Folk-music collections and pageant bios are separate records that happen to share a surname.

The takeaway: if you arrived here for the ballad, you found the right page for the wrong person.

Did Elle Smith Appear in Rick and Morty?

• No tier-1 or tier-2 source reviewed for this article connects her to Rick and Morty.
• The link appears in search queries, not in her credited work.

What this means: treat the Rick and Morty association as unverified unless a reliable source documents it.

What Is ‘Elle Smith Untamed’?

• “Untamed” surfaces as a related search with no documented project behind it.
• None of the reviewed sources ties the phrase to a show, book, or brand she has credited.

The catch: “Untamed” is a query pattern, not a credit.

Does Elle Smith Have a TikTok Account?

• The verified handle attached to her profile is @officialellesmith.
• Because TikTok is self-published, her account proves her platform presence — not the details of her biography.

The risk: unofficial accounts reuse her name and photos; the handle with “official” in it is the one to follow.

The implication: most “Elle Smith is connected to X” search results come from name collisions. The verified record — journalism, two pageant titles, and a short credit list — is smaller and easier to check than the search results suggest.

The section above demonstrates that the verified biography is smaller and sharper than the search results suggest. The following sections address the specific open questions about names, age, and personal background.

What Is Elle Smith’s Real Name?

The publicly credited name is Elle Smith. A different legal name is not confirmed in any tier-1 or tier-2 source used in this article, so the professional name is the verified one.

Database profiles from her pageant year list her as Elle Smith, and news coverage spells it the same way. The absence of a second name is a gap, not a hint.

What Is Elle Smith’s Ethnicity?

• Coverage of her win noted the line of Black Miss USA winners that came before her (see the section above).
• None of the reviewed sources provides a detailed ethnic or ancestry breakdown for her family.

The gap: her pageant record is public; her family record is not. No verified source supports guesswork, so this article avoids it.

The honest answer: no reliable source used here confirms a different name, and inventing one would only add to the search confusion this article is trying to clear up.

How Old Is Elle Smith?

Elle Smith was born on June 20, 1998, a date sourced in the timeline below. That makes her 27 as of May 2026, with her 28th birthday on June 20, 2026.

At the November 2021 final she was 23, according to AL.com — a number that lines up with the 1998 birth date.

When Is Elle Smith’s Birthday?

• Listed birth date: June 20.
• Using the Western zodiac, that makes her a Gemini.

The math: a June 20, 1998 birth date and a reported age of 23 in November 2021 agree to the month.

What this means: the age reported at the crowning and the birth date in the timeline are consistent, which is a small but useful sign the record is reliable.

Where Is Elle Smith From?

Elle Smith was born in Springfield, Ohio, according to Georgia Public Broadcasting. That detail surprises people because she competed and won as Kentucky’s delegate.

Her Kentucky chapter runs deeper than the crown: she studied at the University of Kentucky, reported in Louisville, and won the state title that sent her to Miss USA.

Who Are Elle Smith’s Parents?

• The tier-1 and tier-2 sources reviewed here do not name her parents.
• Social-media guesses about family members are not treated as fact in this article.

The gap: without a reliable record, the answer stays “unconfirmed.”

What Is Elle Smith’s Connection to Kentucky?

• She graduated from the University of Kentucky in 2020 with a broadcast journalism degree and a political science minor (see the table above).
• She worked at WHAS-TV in Louisville, covering local news before and after the pageant year.
• She won the state title as Miss Kentucky USA in May 2021, a run documented in the timeline below.

The pattern: Ohio is her birthplace; Kentucky is where she studied, reported, and competed.

Why this matters: “from Kentucky” and “from Ohio” are both true, depending on which stage of life the searcher means.

Who Is Elle Smith’s Partner?

People Also Ask data ties the “Elle Smith partner” query to Leah Williamson. The public confirmation timeline is unclear — none of the tier-1 or tier-2 sources used in this article documents the relationship or when it started.

How Long Have Leah Williamson and Elle Smith Been Together?

• The reviewed sources do not confirm a start date or a duration.
• Specific “years together” numbers in social posts are unverified.
• The reliable default: treat the relationship as publicly unconfirmed until a tier-1 or tier-2 source reports it.

Why this matters: search interest is real, but search interest is not evidence.

The takeaway: relationship claims about Smith deserve the same sourcing standard as her pageant records — a reliable publication, not a comments section.

Why Did Donald Trump Sell Miss Universe?

Donald Trump sold the Miss Universe Organization to WME/IMG in 2015. The sale came after NBC dropped the pageants following his comments about Mexican immigrants, and it changed who ran the business behind both Miss Universe and Miss USA.

For Smith’s story, the sale matters because her 2021 participation came under the new ownership era, not the old one.

What Does Miss Universe 2021 Have to Do with Elle Smith?

• Miss USA winners advance to Miss Universe; Smith represented the United States at the 2021 pageant in Eilat, Israel, per Seventeen magazine.
• She finished in the Top 10 (see the snapshot above).
• Her run is a post-2015 data point in pageant history, which is why it does not belong in the Trump-era coverage.

The connection: the 2015 ownership change and Smith’s 2021 win are separate events that search results often mash together.

The pattern: ownership changed first, the crown followed later — and keeping those two dates straight fixes most of the confusion.

Timeline: From Springfield to the Miss USA Crown

The sequence runs from an Ohio birth to a Tulsa crowning, with a newsroom job and a state title in between.

• June 20, 1998 — Born in Springfield, Ohio (see the snapshot above).
• 2015 — Donald Trump sold the Miss Universe Organization to WME/IMG.
• October 2020 — Joined WHAS-TV in Louisville as a multimedia journalist and reporter (Georgia Public Broadcasting).
• May 2021 — Won Miss Kentucky USA (her alma mater’s journalism school).
• November 29, 2021 — Crowned Miss USA 2021 at River Spirit Casino Resort in Tulsa, Oklahoma (National Newspaper Publishers Association).
• Late 2021 — Represented the United States at Miss Universe 2021 in Eilat, Israel, finishing in the Top 10.
• 2022 — Credited in Jack Harlow Feat. Drake: Churchill Downs, per database listings.

What the dates show: Smith’s public life compressed into a fast sequence — degree, newsroom, state crown, national crown, international final — with almost no gap between milestones.

What’s Confirmed vs. Still Unclear

One list is for the record; the other is for the gaps. The unclear list is longer because the sources that verify her pageant results are silent on her family, her name, and her personal life.

The balance of evidence: her pageant and career facts sit on institutional sources; her personal details remain unverified. Read the two lists as one instruction — trust the first, withhold judgment on the second.

Elle Smith in Her Own Words

These passages show how she talked about the pageant, the job, and the stage.

“She had wanted to enter pageants since high school, but waited until she had a job that could help her afford it.”

Elle Smith, as reported by Georgia Public Broadcasting

Smith described journalism as a way to connect with her community and share new perspectives, as told to AL.com.

“Elle Smith represented the United States at Miss Universe 2021 in Eilat, Israel.”

From Seventeen magazine‘s profile of Smith

The thread running through all three: she treated pageants as a step she could finally afford, journalism as the work she was already doing, and Miss Universe as the stage where both overlapped.

The Takeaway

Elle Smith’s verified record is short, consistent, and easy to check: an Ohio birth, a Kentucky education, a Louisville newsroom job, two pageant titles, and a Top-10 international finish. The gaps are just as clear — no confirmed legal-name record, no documented relationship timeline, no verified Rick and Morty credit, no “Untamed” project. For anyone searching “Elle Smith” and landing on folk-ballad lyrics or fan theories, the choice is clear: follow the pageant-era records, or keep reading the wrong biography.

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