The head of the Miss America Organization was forced to resign Saturday, a day after the revelation of emails in which he disparaged previous pageant winners.
HuffPost on Friday published emails sent between pageant chief executive Sam Haskell and organization staffers and board members that included sexist, insulting comments about former Miss Americas and laid bare deep dysfunction within the organization.
After the report was published, 49 former Miss America winners signed a petition asking for Haskell to step down. In addition to Haskell, President Josh Randle and Chairman Lynn Weidner resigned.
In one email published, a telecast writer told Haskell he would refer to all former Miss America winners as a crass word for female genitalia.
“Perfect,” Haskell replied, according to the report. “Bahahah.”
Haskell released a statement Friday night apologizing for a “mistake of words,” but he called the HuffPost story “dishonest, deceptive, and despicable.”
The emails HuffPost reported are, at a minimum, indicative of deep fissures within the Miss America Organization, a group known for lofty propriety and an aversion to scandal. But it is no surprise that they’ve emerged as the “Me Too” movement has swept across the nation, bringing bad behavior to light in every corner of society.
“The language used and the attitudes toward the former Miss Americas was completely shocking because they’re usually treated with a lot of reverence,” Hilary Levy Friedman, a professor at Brown University who studies pageant culture, told The Washington Post. “The totality of it was quite surprising. And at this moment in American culture, this feels particularly weighty.”
Caressa Cameron, a Fredericksburg, Virginia, native who held the Miss America title in 2010, in an interview with The Post said the problem was not one of language, but of respect and leadership style.
Haskell joined the Miss America organization nine years ago after a successful career as a talent agent, and he is largely credited for bringing the pageant back to prominence. But former pageant winners are claiming he ruled with an iron fist and shamed and blackballed women who didn’t comply with his wishes.
Cameron says the organization prevented her from participating in events related to her platform, HIV/AIDS prevention, and that she was once mistakenly sent an email in which Haskell referred to her mother as “uneducated trash.”
Much of the HuffPost report focused on Haskell’s ire with the 2013 Miss America, Mallory Hagan.
The article included emails in which Haskell makes insulting remarks about Hagan’s body and sexual history.
The story also includes emails attacking former winners Kate Shindle and Gretchen Carlson, the Fox News host who sued network chairman Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. According to the report, a key production partner, Dick Clark Productions, ended a deal with Miss America after reviewing the offensive emails.
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