Miss Idaho Now Miss Usa, Thanks To Miss Universe

Idaho Falls native Brandi Sherwood is the new Miss USA.

She inherited the crown Friday night after Miss USA Brook Mahealani Lee was crowned Miss Universe at the pageant in Miami. Sherwood was first runner-up at the Miss USA pageant in February.

“It happened that quick,” her father, Don Sherwood, said Saturday. “We knew before the pageant was over.”

Sherwood, in Los Angeles with her mother, Shirley, had called her father with the news, which she had learned from a friend and former Miss USA Shannon Marketic, who was at the pageant in Miami.

The Sherwoods had been watching the pageant with anticipation. They knew what would happen if Lee won, Don Sherwood said.

“This is incredible,” he said. “The pageant called this morning and said ‘Welcome aboard.”’

Sherwood, 26, has been living in Los Angeles, acting and modeling since the February pageant.

She reports to the Miss USA pageant office in Los Angeles today, her father said. She will complete Lee’s reign, which lasts until next February.

Sherwood is no stranger to pageantry. At 15 she was crowned Miss Idaho Teen. At 18 she was crowned Miss Teen USA.

Don Sherwood said he could not comment on the lawsuit against the Sultan of Brunei in which his daughter is named.

She is one of six women named in the lawsuit filed by Marketic, which alleges the sultan held the women captive in an island palace where they were expected to perform sexual acts.

The sultan’s attorneys have argued in court for sovereign immunity and have said the suit alleges the acts were committed by associates of the sultan, not the sultan himself.