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Madeline Delp is a changemaker. In 2019, she became the first wheelchair-user to enter an able-bodied pageant, Miss USA pageant. Whether she’s entering pageants or skydiving from a plane, Madeline is all about challenging society’s misconceptions of people with disabilities. And she is now in Hollywood to tackle the movies. Read on to learn the backstory of this different kind of beauty queen.
Why She’s Fearless
Madeline has lived her life as a wheelchair since she was a girl. She was in a car accident when she was 10 years old. Pediatric spinal cord injuries are rare, which Madeline found out after returning home. She felt alone in her town of Asheville, North Carolina. With a lot of negative emotions tied to her injury, she struggled with her confidence.
Thankfully, her German language class in high school helped her gain the confidence she needed. Madeline was able to travel overseas after graduating from high school, using the language skills she learned in high school German class. She studied the language in Germany while she was a student at the University of North Carolina. Through her travels, Madeline began to feel the confidence she was sorely lacking after her injury.
Meeting new people and making new friends also helped her more than she anticipated. While in college, Madeline discovered the Ms. Wheelchair North Carolina pageant and decided to enter the competition in 2016. Madeleine won the pageant by sharing what she discovered about her own journey – that it’s possible for anyone, even if you have a disability, to reach for your dreams.
Traveling was the change that Madeline needed. A natural in the pageant world, Madeleine next went on to win the Ms. Wheelchair USA 2017 pageant. She also toured the country to spread her personal mantra of “live boundless.” This was such a powerful experience that it led her to creating the nonprofit, the Live Boundless organization.
What’s Next?
Madeline however wasn’t satisfied with only winning Ms. Wheelchair USA 2017. She had her eyes on a bigger prize that no woman in a wheelchair had yet to achieve: to compete in the mainstream Miss North Carolina pageant. Knowing the only way she could enter the pageant was to win a city pageant in the state, Madeline competed and won Miss Asheville, which allowed her to compete in Miss North Carolina in 2018.
When Madeline rolled on stage in her custom red dress, with a train flowing behind her like the wind, she made history. Unfortunately, Madeline did not win Miss North Carolina 2018, but she did win Miss Congeniality, an honor bestowed by fellow competitors.
After ending her pageant days, Madeline moved to California to try to reach another one of her dreams – being cast in TV and the movies. She was cast in the feature film Ballroom, where she plays the role of a ballroom dancer that uses a wheelchair.
Madeline has also focused on philanthropy, such as giving away wheelchairs to people in need around the world, along with speaking publicly through her Live Boundless organization. Madeline is determined to use her talents to encourage people that they are capable of anything, especially “breaking the bounds of their mind and body” and she hopes to encourage everyone that “they can truly aspire to a potential that is boundless.”
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