Miss Teen USA is shrugging off its champion's repeated use of a racial slur on Twitter, disclaiming it as having occurred years before Texan teen Karlie Hay's participation in the tournament.

Hay, crowned Saturday in Vegas, will continue to receive support for "her continued growth," the organization told People Magazine.

The Miss USA Pageant was recently acquired by WME/IMG after the company cut a deal with the pageant's co-owner Donald Trump last year, Variety reports. In an Instagram post, Hay implied that the racist language was a result of her "personal struggles." "I admit that I have used language publicly in the past which I am not proud of and that there is no excuse for," Hay captioned a group photo of herself with the other Miss Teen USA contestants. "Through hard work, education and thanks in large part to the sisterhood that I have come to know through pageants, I am proud to say that I am today a better person."

If the old timey spelling of the word (contra "nigga") deprives her of the worthless-anyway excuse that it's merely the reclaimed vernacular of youngsters of all races, it seemed not to matter much to the organization, though it did say the slur "in no way reflects the values of the Miss Universe Organization."

Here are the values of the Miss Universe Organization, reflected in the finalists' stage:

Via @XLNB, who anticipates the excuses: