Tarnished Reign : Pageant to Back Mrs. America . . . as Long as She Remains a Mrs.

Suspected welfare fraud is one thing. But divorce is a different kettle of fish.

The Mrs. America pageant officials said on Friday they will stand by the reigning queen despite a welfare fraud investigation--as long as she stays married.

Jill Scott, the reigning Mrs. America, canceled her monthly welfare payments last week after it was disclosed that she was under investigation for cheating the system--an allegation that her attorney has denied. Scott has also separated from her husband, who is living in Scottsdale, Ariz. She lives in Coronado.

The Mrs. America pageant officials “probably could have gotten someone else to represent them better, considering my own failures,” said Scott, 32, whose one-year reign ends in April.

Her failures?

“My marriage,” she answered. “We’re separated.”

Scott separated from her husband three months before the Mrs. America pageant, reunited with him briefly before the pageant, and filed for divorce in May, 1991, Matthew M. Kremer, her attorney, said in an Associated Press account. The papers that would finalize the divorce have not been signed, he said.

A divorce, however, would mean an abrupt end to Scott’s reign--stripping her of the much-coveted crown and title, pageant officials said.

“This is a pageant for married women, and you must be married to enter, compete, and hold the crown,” said David Marmel, president and founder of the 15-year-old Santa Monica-based pageant. “We like to characterize the married woman as America’s greatest natural resource.”

Marmel is holding out hope, however, that the reigning queen’s stormy marriage can be salvaged.

“It’s really too bad what’s happened to the poor lady--I don’t mean that figuratively, I mean that literally,” Marmel said. “But a trial separation offers . . . hope for reconciliation.”

Scott says she has no regrets about entering the pageant: “Winning the title of Mrs. America has been a wonderful opportunity. It’s opened a lot of doors.”

Take this past week. Scott hosted a San Diego cable television talk show interview with a cosmetic surgeon. And a bathing suit-clad Scott also appeared in an liposuction advertisement in this month’s San Diego magazine.

“I was in New York modeling bathing suits only 10 days after my surgery,” a beaming Scott says in the ad.

But these types of appearances and advertisements have mostly been arranged on a trade basis--awarding free services but no money, Scott and the doctors’ spokesmen say.

So, Scott applied for welfare shortly after filing for divorce--receiving $800 a month, according to Kremer.

Earlier this week, the San Diego Tribune reported that the San Diego County Department of Social Services was investigating Scott for welfare fraud. Scott violated department rules by failing to inform the county that she received money from her husband, Kremer told the paper. “She regrets the mistake,” he said.

Campaigning for the Mrs. America pageant can be costly, with some candidates paying as much as $15,000 for glittering gowns, perky interview suits, and sexy calisthenic outfits, said last year’s Mrs. America, Jennifer Johnson.

“Girls are absolutely decked out, they invest all this money,” Johnson said. “Appearance is very important.”

It is not known, however, if Scott’s bid for the crown helped drain her finances. George E. Scott, her husband, failed to deliver the $1,340 a month that a court had ordered him to pay to support his estranged wife and two children, ages 6 and 8, Kremer said.

George E. Scott “never gave me a penny,” Jill Scott told the Coronado Journal. And Jill Scott’s own experience as a housewife-turned-beauty-queen have not helped her in a tight job market.

“I’m not trying to play stupid or dumb, but I have been a housewife for 10 years. I have no job experience and I don’t have a college degree,” Scott told the Coronado Journal.

In recent days, stories about Scott and her troubles have peppered newspapers ranging from U.S.A. Today to the International Herald Tribune. The publicity has only added to the sting of her personal troubles, Scott said.

“It’s taking its toll,” she said, “Making my personal life open to the world is difficult. This is not something every public person goes through.”