The New York Times reported that three Miss America executives, including CEO Sam Haskell, resigned on Saturday just two days after emails containing disparaging comments about former contestants leaked to the press.
Miss America spokesperson Dan Meyers announced that, in addition to Haskell, the pageant had accepted the resignations of president Josh Randle and chairwoman Lynn Weidner.
Here is Miss America’s official statement on the matter:
On Thursday, HuffPost published the compromising emails, curated from a review of three years worth of material, which display a range of inappropriate remarks by Miss America executives and staff, including one in which lead writer Lewis Friedman referred to former contestants as “cunts,” to which Haskell responded with a slimy “bahahaha.” Friedman was subsequently fired.
Then, on Friday, 49 former Miss America winners signed onto a letter, also published by HuffPost, in which the women requested the resignations of Haskell, Randle, Weidner, and board member Tammy Haddad (who resigned, slightly earlier, on Friday), as well as “those who sat by without objection while such derisive comments were passed around.”
In a statement published Saturday by Gretchen Carlson and Kate Shindle, the former Miss Americas reiterated their demand for “the resignations of every individual who either participated in the abuse of women or stood by and was complicit by failing to conduct proper due diligence.”