Olivia Jordan

Early life and education

Jordan was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma to Bob and Jill Thomas. She is a 4th generation Tulsan and a graduate of Bishop Kelley High School.^[1] She attended college in Boston, Massachusetts. While at Boston University, she lived on the 9th floor of Sleeper Hall and became SAG-eligible through featured extra work in the movies Ted and Here Comes the Boom.^{[1][lower-alpha 1]} She graduated from Boston University in May 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in health sciences. She then moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in modeling and acting. She has appeared in multiple feature films and appeared in Hot Tub Time Machine 2 as well as the Lifetime television pilot Unreal.^[2]

Pageantry

Jordan represented Beverly Hills in the Miss California USA 2013 on January 13, 2013, where she finished as 1st runner-up to Miss California USA 2013, Mabelynn Capeluj. Later that year, Jordan was appointed as Miss World America 2013 and competed at Miss World 2013 pageant, where she finished in the top 20^[3] and was also 1st runner-up for Top Model.^[4]

On December 21, 2014, Jordan won the title of Miss Oklahoma USA 2015 and later won the title of Miss USA 2015 on July 12, 2015, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.^[5] Her question as a Miss USA finalist asked who she would choose as an American woman to put on the next new bill design. She named Harriet Tubman.^[6] On April 20, 2016, the U.S. Treasury officially announced that it had chosen Tubman to be featured on the new $20 bill.^[7] During her reign, Donald Trump sold his stake in the Miss Universe Organization ending his affiliation with the beauty pageant. Jordan represented the United States in the Miss Universe 2015 pageant held on December 20, 2015, where she was named the second runner-up.^[8] Jordan wore a custom Berta Bridal dress to the evening gown portion of the competition, and was chosen among the top ten dressed in the competition.^[9]

Jordan was the third person from the United States to compete at two major international beauty pageants after Andrea Neu, who previously competed at Miss International 2013 and Miss Earth 2014 and Brucene Smith, who competed in Miss World 1971 and won Miss International 1974. However, she had the distinction of being the first woman to represent the United States at two of the largest and oldest international pageants in the world: Miss World and Miss Universe.