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America’s Next Top Model’s Angelea Preston: I’m Pregnant and Married!

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Angelea Preston

Her surprise disqualification from America’s Next Top Model: All Stars made headlines, and now Angelea Preston is in the news again. But this time, it’s for a much different reason: she’s married and pregnant!

“I’m very excited about things that have been happening in my life recently, like with my marriage and my baby and my career,” Preston, 25, tells the new issue of Us Weekly (out now). “I feel very blessed.”

Related: VIDEO: America's Next Top Model's wildest meltdowns

While at home in Buffalo, New York “around Christmastime,” Preston discovered she was pregnant with boyfriend Eric Brown‘s baby. “Eric and I have dated for about two years,” she explains. “Eric was the only person that I did tell right away. . . but everyone else I kept in the dark for a while about it.”

Preston moved to L.A. to pursue modeling, and shortly after, Brown called her up to propose. “He said, ‘Let’s just do this. Let’s get married,'” Preston recalls. “And I said, ‘Okay, let’s do it!’ And that’s kind of how that happened. . . It kind of caught me by surprise.”

Related: PHOTOS: Celebrity pregnancies

The couple tied the knot in New York City on February 24. “It was on a Friday and it was raining,” Preston remembers. “I feel like Eric is more than just my partner — I feel like he’s my best friend. He’s someone I can depend on. I just love him and he’s just so sexy to me . . . But it’s so much more than the physical; we have a deeper connection, and I really love that.”

Brown, 37, has children from a previous relationship. “He is a great father to his kids,” says Preston, who is expecting a baby boy.

Angelea
Angelea Preston

This isn’t Preston’s first pregnancy. Her daughter Giavonna Anchell was born three-months premature on November 3, 2003. Sadly, she died 23 days later. “I had her at 25 weeks,” Preston explains. “I do tend to worry [about this pregnancy], just for the simple fact that my daughter was premature and she did pass away, so there’s a lot of nervousness.”

But with that nervousness also comes excitement. Preston recently signed with the Expecting Models agency, and she’s “very excited” for the next phase of her career. “Hopefully I get some jobs from that.”

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And though she’d previously been silent about her dismissal from America’s Next Top Model: All Stars, Preston tells Us she’s “grateful to my fans and to everyone who has supported me.” The New York native adds that “part of the truth has come out already about the original outcome, and I believe that the rest of the truth will come out later.” (Preston was widely believed to be the winner prior to her disqualification; Lisa D’Amato, 30, was crowned the winner in December 2011.)

Related: PHOTOS: Busy star moms on the go

For Preston, the best is yet to come. “I feel that with this pregnancy, it’s a second chance for me to be a mother, and it really puts things in perspective about what’s really important in life.”

“At the end of the day, I’m going to be someone’s light. I already have people who say that I’m their inspiration, but this is my child,” she tells Us. “My son is going to look up to me and view me as a role model, so I just want to be the best person that I can be for him. That includes learning to forgive people and learning not to hold grudges and learning to be the best person that I can be for me and my son.”

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