Miss USA Olivia Culpo Wins 2012 Miss Universe Pageant

Meet your new beauty queen!

By Bruna Nessif Dec 20, 2012 4:00 AMTags
Miss USA 2012 Olivia Culpo, Crowned Miss Universe 2012David Becker/Getty Images

Wow, that almost never happens.

Miss USA Olivia Culpo has been crowned as 2012's Miss Universe tonight in Las Vegas, after competing against 88 other women from countries around the world. 

"I'm dreaming, it's a dream," she said while surrounded by the other ladies. 

Culpo claimed the title from last year's winner, Leila Lopes of Angola, after strutting in a purple and blue bikini and a red velvet gown with a plunging neckline.

"One thing I feel people don't know about me is that I'm really easy-going," the new Miss Universe explained during a pretaped segment of the show.

"Any joke, I'll get it. I mean, I think a lot of the times they think of beauty queens as almost being plastic, but I can take jokes and I can take anything. I'm just a normal person."

During the final question, Miss Universe 2010, Ximena Navarrete, asked Olivia, "What is something that you have done, that you will never do again?" Ooooh, scandalous, but Culpo kept it PG.

"First I'd like to start off by saying that every experience, no matter what it is, good or bad, you'll learn from it. That's just life," she said.

"But something I've done that I've probably regretted would be picking on my siblings growing up because you appreciate them so much more when you're older, you get closer with your family. Everybody fights with their siblings, right?! But I don't regret it."

Well, we're sure they (and Ryan Lochte) are very proud of her right now.