Rapper Juicy J has awarded a $50,000 "twerking scholarship" to a young woman who didn't even have to twerk for the hefty prize.
Last year, the Three 6 Mafia co-founder caused quite a stir when he announced that he was partnering with Worldstarhiphop.com to launch the "Juicy J Scholarship Foundation" competition. He tweeted at the time that he would award a $50,000 college scholarship "to the best chick that can twerk."
In a video posted online Monday, Juicy J announced the winner of the scholarship: a 19-year-old single mom named Zaire Holmes.
An aspiring doctor, Holmes -- who described herself as a "motivated" and "hardworking mom and student" in her submission video -- is currently majoring in biological sciences at the State College of Florida.
Unlike other applicants to the scholarship, Holmes did not twerk -- not even a little bit -- to get noticed by Juicy J.
Nowhere in the scholarship application guidelines is "twerking" mentioned, and Holmes says she recognized that loophole from the get-go.
"A lot of people thought you had to twerk, but you actually had to read the rules," she said in the announcement video Monday.
“$50,000 is a lot of money, and I just don’t wanna waste it on just some chick twerking her ass,” the rapper also said in the video. He is later seen telling Holmes that he identifies with her.
"I came from nothing," he told the young mom. "You remind me of myself. When I was 19, I was like really, really working hard."
(Watch Holmes tearfully receiving her prize in the video above.)
Though some netizens have taken to social media sites this week to criticize the contest's results (with a few calling the scholarship's guidelines "misleading"), Juicy J had actually made it clear last year that applicants did not need to twerk to win.
“You don’t have to be able to twerk to win this $50,000 dollar scholarship,“ he told XXL Magazine in August. "It’s not all about dancing and twerking. It’s about your personality. So I want people to know that if you want to twerk that’s on you but you don’t have to do that to win that scholarship. You can just send me a video of showing me how smart you are or what your goals in life are for me to give you this money. It’s for people who use their brains, too.”
He added at the time that he wanted to use this scholarship to give "back to the community."
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