Miss USA's Rehab Rebound

Mon., Jan. 29, 2007 1:27 PM PST by Gina Serpe

Tara Conner is no longer striving for world peace. Inner peace is the new name of the game.

Well, that and self-promotion.

The reigning Miss USA, apparently taking a cue from pageant purveyor Donald Trump, is wasting no time in hitting the publicity circuit a week after checking out of rehab.

The 21-year-old, who spent 31 days in a Pennsylvania facility before exiting Jan. 21, had her choice of where to debut her comeback story after a daytime bidding war reportedly broke out.

When the smoke cleared, Matt Lauer and his Today cohorts emerged victorious. Conner will give her first—and only—live interview to the Peacock morning show on Thursday. She'll follow up the chat with a pretaped prime-time sit down, for Dateline NBC, on Saturday.

Conner, who entered the Caron Foundation on Dec. 21 amid allegations of very hard-partying and the threat of losing her crown, is expected to set the record straight over which of her many reported extracurricular activities were true.

Before she checked herself in, tabloid reporting on her supposed indiscretions—men, drugs, clubs and booze—had reached a fever pitch. Conner is also expected to weigh in on the previously taboo topic of Trump's feud with Rosie O'Donnell, which she, albeit unwittingly, sparked.

And of course, she'll wax philosophical on the benefits of rehab, something she's already had practice doing.

"I would not change my past, because it gave me my future," she told NBC News in preparation for her chat with Lauer. "I learned the tools to live a clean and sober life of recovery. From rehab, I gain sobriety."

The Kentucky native also mused on the topic to People, telling the magazine that the experience of sobering up made her "a completely different person."

"Before I entered rehab I hardly knew who I was," she said. "I felt like I was floating and I just needed someone to pull me down."

Conner also told the magazine that while, despite her teary gratitude at Trump's second chance-granting press conference last month, she originally viewed going to rehab as just some sort of "free therapy," a view she now calls "ridiculous."

"I've realized I do have an issue," she told People, adding that she took her first drink at age 14. "I suffer from the disease of alcoholism and addiction. And if there's anything that I want people to know it's the severity of this disease and what it can do to people."

Conner may be making one more unlikely pitstop on her road to full-blown recovery, particularly in light of what allegedly drove her to the facility in the first place.

Reports have been circulating that Conner would pose for Playboy magazine in the coming months, though, to keep her crown, she would not be allowed to appear completely in the buff.

Trump himself gave credence to the rumors earlier this month, telling E! News that Hugh Hefner's empire had approached him about Conner appearing on the cover—clothed—and that he was currently mulling the proposal over.