Former Miss USA Tara Conner: ‘I Was Suicidal’

Although she once wore the crown of Miss USA, according to Tara Conner, her reign was more like “Mess USA.”

“I got to the point, literally, where I was suicidal,” Tara said on the premiere episode of the third season of CMT’s “Gone Country,” which will air on Saturday.

The Dallas native, who earned the crown in April 2006, said she lost herself when a scandal broke out over her alcohol and drug use at the end of that year. She was allowed to keep her title by Donald Trump, who announced in December 2006 that Tara would also be attending rehab.

“When everything went down with me when I was Miss USA, I didn’t know who I was,” Tara told her castmates in the “Gone Country” episode.

“I didn’t know what real emotions were. I was a miserable person,” she added – a state that brought her to the brink of taking her own life.

But her stint in rehab helped her recover – and learn to open up again.

“I feel so much [now],” she said. “When it hurts, it hurts really bad but when it feels good, it feels good!”

In an interview with Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush for “The Billy Bush Show,” she expanded on fighting her personal demons.

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I was in a really bad place,” she admitted to Billy. “I just didn’t know how to live, I didn’t know how to face life, and I needed somehow to help me but I didn’t know how to ask.”

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On “Gone Country,” the former pageant winner is competing with six other celebs, including funk veteran George Clinton and former “American Idol” runner-up Justin Guarini, to write a country song for show host John Rich.