Kellie Chauvin from Laos to Thailand to USOA’s Mrs. Minnesota 2019

Representing Oakdale, Minnesota, United States, Kellie Xiong Chauvin, 45, was crowned United States of America’s Mrs. Minnesota 2019 in October 2018, besting seven other candidates. She was the first woman of Hmong descent to win the title.

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Kellie Chauvin

Representing Minnesota, Chauvin competed in USOA’s Mrs. 2019 in February 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. She did not win the title, which was given to Danielle Salena Santistevan of Virginia.

Even before becoming a beauty queen, Chauvin has donated to several Hmong nonprofits, including Hmong Empowering Women, and small companies and has volunteered as a translator at local hospitals. It was her longtime friend Sophia Xiong-Yang who convinced her to try her luck in beauty pageants.

The reigning USOA’s Mrs. Minnesota 2019 attributes her burning desire to serve others to her experience as someone who has lived and breathed hardship. She told Lake Time Magazine, “I want people to know that I, someone who grew up in a refugee camp as a child and in the first Hmong generation to grow up and receive a proper education, was bullied as a child, was forced into an abusive marriage and later lived on the streets, all to save my parents’ faces in the Hmong community.”

Born in Laos during a time of war, Chauvin was only 3 years old when she and her family fled to safety in Thailand. She avoids eating oatmeal because it reminds her of the days she and her family spent in a refugee camp in Thailand from 1977 to 1980.

In October 1980, Chauvin and her family moved to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA. In 1984, she was placed in a kindergarten class with younger classmates who could read and write English better than she did.

As a child, Chauvin was bullied for being different, particularly for the way she looked. At one time, she was the only one of her friends who was not invited to join in a local parade.

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Derek Chauvin

At the age of 17, Chauvin was married off by her parents to KuJay Xiong, a man she barely knew. She said he abused her for 10 years.

After divorcing Xiong, Chauvin moved to Minnesota. She earned her associate’s degree in radiology and took an internship in the emergency room of Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota, which later hired her.

While working at Hennepin County Medical Center, Chauvin met Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Michael Chauvin who brought in a crime suspect for a health check before an arrest. She and Derek got married in June 2010 and since then, they have been living together in Oakdale.

For 13 years, Kellie worked at Hennepin County Medical Center.  She later went to Kaplan University in Davenport, Iowa, USA for residential real estate and started working as a realtor with Re/Max Results.

36 thoughts on “Kellie Chauvin from Laos to Thailand to USOA’s Mrs. Minnesota 2019”

    1. Wow, McCain – ignorant but vocal! Kellie is a Hmong refugee, and Thao is Vietnamese. Apples and oranges. You might wanna go back and check your multiple spelling mistakes in your native language.

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      1. Sounds like third time’s the charm! I wish her all the best and with her past I can see quite clearly why she filed for divorce after seeing the video of Derek ‘at his peak’..

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  7. First, this article is stupid, why give her publicity, who cares she is married to a murder. Focus on the victim, which she is not. And to be honest, it is a common theme for Asian women married to racist white men. Self-hatred is quite common for Asian women.

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    1. Racist statement? Facts don’t lie, do some research whomever you are.. guessing an Asian woman married to a white man.

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      1. Are you crazy? Asian women like white men better than Asian men, especially chinese men. White men knows how to wash dishes while asian men are mama’s boys. racist, mama’s boys.

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  15. […] agents and list Florida as their State of residence, where they own a home in Windermere—and were married in 2001 shortly after Kellie Xiong Chavin’s previous husband Kujay Xiong mysteriously…—and further to be noted, is that Kellie Xiong Chauvin has an as yet unnamed brother still […]

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  19. Funny, there is not even one coment before the case of George Floyd (2020) and the actual Mrs Minessota in 2019 is Elizabeth Walgrave… The first Hmong winer in a peagent is Padee Yang in 2020.

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  22. I have to wonder if this wasn’t a weird love triangle. I think she cheated on her abusive husband with George Floyd (also son’s name – odd) at some point. Eventually marrying Chauvin – who found out somehow about their relations, and knowing exactly who Floyd was – took matters into his own hands out of jealousy.

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