Miss America officials resign, one apologizes to ex-winner
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - AP
Mallory Hagan
The top leadership of the Miss America Organization, implicated in an email scandal that targeted past pageant winners for abuse based on their appearance, intellect and sex lives, resigned on Dec. 23, with the outgoing president apologizing to a winner whose weight he ridiculed.
The president, Josh Randle, said his comment responding to an email to his private account about the physical appearance of 2013 winner Mallory Hagan came months before he started working for the Miss America Organization in 2015. But he said it was wrong.
"I apologize to Mallory for my lapse in judgment," Randle said on Dec. 23. "It does not reflect my values or the values I worked to promote at the Miss America Organization. Although this terrible situation was not caused or driven by me, in light of recent events and new developments, I am no longer willing to continue in my capacity as president and earlier today offered my resignation to the MAO Board of Directors."
Randle said his resignation was voluntary and had not been requested by the board of Miss America, which is based in Atlantic City.
Hagan did not comment on the resignations of Randle, CEO Sam Haskell and Chairwoman Lynn Weidner, a former Miss New Jersey.
Weidner said that she has nothing but love for the Miss America Organization and the incredible women who comprise it.
The scandal began on Dec. 21 when the Huffington Post published leaked emails showing pageant officials ridiculing past Miss Americas, including crass and sometimes vulgar comments about them.
The emails included one that used a vulgar term for female genitalia to refer to past Miss America winners, one that wished that a particular former Miss America had died and others that speculated about how many sex partners Hagan has had.
Randle noted that the worst communications were exchanged in 2013 and 2014, years before he joined the Miss America Organization, and said the article's implication of complicit participation on my part in a years long array of inappropriate email communication is untrue.
Haskell's resignation is effective immediately, while Randle and Weidner will remain for a few weeks to help with a leadership transition. Dan Meyers, who had been vice chairman of the board, was named interim chairman.
The organization announced the resignations a day after dozens of former Miss Americas, including Hagan, signed a petition calling on the group's leadership to step down because of the emails.
The emails already cost its television production partner and raised questions about the future of the nationally televised broadcast from Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall the week after Labor Day each year. Dick Clark Productions said that it cut ties with the Miss America Organization over the emails, calling them "appalling."