Miss America leadership resigns after leaked emails reveal shaming

The top leadership of the Miss America Organization has resigned, sweeping out officials implicated in an email scandal that targeted past pageant winners for abuse based on their appearance, intellect and sex lives.

CEO Sam Haskell resigned from the Atlantic City-based organization on Saturday, a day after he was suspended by the board. President Josh Randle and Chairman Lynn Weidner also resigned today.

The organization announced the resignations one day after dozens of former Miss Americas signed a petition calling on the group's leadership to step down. Haskell said he made "a mistake of words."

"Those who know my heart know that this is not indicative of my character, nor is it indicative of my business acumen," Haskell wrote in a statement issued Friday.

Haskell's resignation is effective immediately. Randle and Weidner will remain for a few weeks to help with a leadership transition. Dan Meyers, who had been vice chair of the board, was named interim chair.

In separate statements, the Miss America board confirmed the resignations of Randle, who became president in May and at 29 was the youngest to hold that position with the organization, as well as Haskell and Weidner.

The Huffington Post reported Thursday on the emails, which it says it received from two sources. One email used a vulgar term for female genitalia to refer to past Miss America winners.

A petition organized by former Miss North Carolina Jennifer Vaden Barth garnered the signatures of 49 former Miss Americas by mid-afternoon Friday. The petition called the emails by CEO Sam Haskell and others "despicable" and faulted officials who "sat by without objection while such derisive comments were passed around."

"We are deeply disturbed and saddened to learn of the sickening and egregious words used by Miss America leadership," the petition read. "We collectively call for their immediate resignation."

The Miss America Organization had said Thursday night that Haskell had apologized, and that the group was revising its policies regarding communications.

Mallory Hagan's appearance and sex life were mocked in the emails. She won the 2013 competition.

"My hope is that this story that broke will bring light to the type of behaviour that's been in leadership of the Miss America Organization and really help us put in place some people who care and who embody the mission of Miss America," Hagan said in a video posted online.

"Having somebody bully you, demean you, degrade you in any way is not OK."

In other emails, a former writer for the pageant notes the death of one former Miss America, and muses that he wished it had been 1998 Miss America Kate Shindle that had died instead. Shindle wrote a book critical of the Miss America Organization. Haskell responded to the email, indicating it made him laugh.

"The entire board of directors must immediately resign, including and especially Sam Haskell," Shindle wrote on Twitter, adding the content of the emails "makes me physically ill."

Haskell also wrote of tactics that would drive 1989 Miss America Gretchen Carlson "insane." The Huffington Post reported she had clashed with Haskell and pageant officials over her push to modernize the organization, and her refusal to attack other former Miss America winners.

Carlson wrote on Twitter that any board member or official who tolerated such conduct should resign immediately.

"No woman should be demeaned with such vulgar slurs," she wrote.

On Friday, Atlantic City's incoming Democratic mayor, Frank Gilliam Jr., and two state Assemblymen — Republican Chris Brown and Democrat Vince Mazzeo — called on the state Casino Reinvestment Development Authority to end its partial subsidy of the pageant, which has about $4 million US left on it.

The emails have cost the pageant its television production partner and raised questions about the future of the nationally televised broadcast from Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall the week after Labour Day each year.

Dick Clark Productions told The Associated Press Thursday night that it cut ties with the Miss America Organization over the emails, calling them "appalling."