A 2004 clip from the “Miss Buttaface Contest” went viral on X (formerly Twitter) this week, sparking heated discussions about feminism and beauty standards.
The clip features a contestant named Stacey, who went on the Howard Stern Show’s Miss Buttaface, a parody of competitions like Miss Universe, but for women who are deemed unattractive.
Some men online have compared Stacey to Zendaya, whom they called an example of a modern “model,” and stirred controversy by claiming that today’s “it girls” are less attractive than the so-called “Buttaface girl.”
The contest’s name comes from “butterfaces,” the slang term for “but her face,” and is used to describe women who have slim, curvy bodies but whose faces supposedly don’t meet society’s conventional beauty standards.
Image credits: 我的世界萌小熊 / YouTube
Miss Buttaface was held annually in Las Vegas, and the winner received a cash prize of $25,000.
Contestants were ranked by a panel of judges who decided who had the largest gap in beauty between their body and their face.
Judges included Howard Stern, Artie Lange, Rob Schneider, and Robin Quivers, among others.
Image credits: 我的世界萌小熊 / YouTube
Women walked on stage wearing bikinis and paper bags over their faces. Once they faced the judges, they removed the brown bags, revealing their faces to the judges and the live audience.
In 2004, the first contestant was named Stacey (or Stacy). When she took the paper bag off, the audience and judges laughed, with some sticking their tongues out or making other faces of disgust.
In 2004, Stacey went on the show, which looked for the woman with the best body and the most unattractive face
Image credits: 我的世界萌小熊 / YouTube
Image credits: 我的世界萌小熊 / YouTube
A post featuring side-by-side photos of Stacey and Zendaya has recently gone viral. The post, captioned, “Butterface, 2003; Model, 2025,” received over 22 million views and 185,000 likes.
Many men expressed disbelief that Stacey was once considered unattractive, while the Dune actress is now widely regarded as beautiful. In criticizing modern beauty standards, they often made derogatory comments about Zendaya.
“Zendaya is much more of a butterface then the girl on the left,” reads one comment.
“I’ve never understood the hype of Zendaya.. It’s not like she’s ugly but she gets touted as some supermodel. But hey… I grew up in the time of Cindy Crawford and Tyra Banks,” another user said.
Hosted by Howard Stern, it showed women in bikinis who removed their paper bags after going on stage
Image credits: 我的世界萌小熊 / YouTube
“We don’t have to bring one woman down to prop another woman up. They’re both beautiful…. In their own unique way,” one person penned.
“Howard Stern is an awful human being,” fumed someone else.
“You scoured the earth for a bad pic of Zendaya,” a third replied.
“Watch like 5 seconds of a 2000s reality TV show and you will instantly understand why 2016 feminism was the way it was,” said another viral reaction.
Actress Zendaya, considered an “it girl,” was compared to Stacey in a viral post
Image credits: Arnold Jerocki / Getty Images
The show was hosted in Las Vegas and awarded the winner a cash prize
Image credits: 我的世界萌小熊 / YouTube
Image credits: 我的世界萌小熊 / YouTube
In the full “Miss Buttaface” clip, host Howard Stern tells Stacey after she removes the paper bag that she’s “pretty” and that he doesn’t understand why she competed.
“I think your face is really nice. I would go home with you in a minute. I think you’re hot. I think you’re too pretty for this time,” he said.
“Yeah, I don’t think you’re unattractive at all,” agreed Robin Quivers. “I think you’re girl next door cute.”
Stern asked the woman if it was hard for her to witness the crowd’s negative reaction after taking off the bag. She quietly replied, “No, not really.”
“Howard Stern is an awful human being,” fumed one netizen after watching a clip of the humiliating show
Image credits: 我的世界萌小熊 / YouTube
The host then asked if “some guy” entered her into the competition, to which Stacey replies that a friend had told her about it.
The crude competition to find the woman with “the best body and the worst face,” as described by Stern, was broadcast for many years in the early 2000s.
According to BuzzFeed, the segment included instances of judges asking women if they could “take her top off,” telling them to “turn around to look at their a**,” speculating about their pubic hair and s*x lives, and labeling them “sl*ts.”
People called the show “despicable” and said both Zendaya and Stacey are attractive
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