Somehow, the Huffington Post acquired a treasure trove of e-mails from behind the scenes at the Miss America pageant, and they do not make the people running it, specifically CEO Sam Haskell, look very good at all. Now, if Haskell is smart, he’ll blame Russia and talk about how the pageant was hacked at every opportunity to draw attention away from his own incompetence and shockingly poor judgement.
In late August 2014, the CEO of the Miss America Organization, Sam Haskell, sent an email to the lead writer of the Miss America pageant telecast, Lewis Friedman, informing him of a change he wanted to make in the script: “I have decided that when referring to a woman who was once Miss America, we are no longer going to call them Forever Miss Americas….please change all script copy to reflect that they are Former Miss Americas!”
Friedman replied, “I’d already changed “Forevers” to “Cunts.” Does that work for you?”
Haskell’s short reply came quickly: “Perfect…bahahaha.”
That’s not even funny. There’s no joke there, just some rich dudes going “Eh, the women we make parade around half naked and then quiz on geopolitics for a $50,000 scholarship and a year of employment sure are cunts, right?”
One passage in the HuffPo piece struck me as exceptionally odd and creepy, though. Haskell apparently had it in for former Miss America Mallory Hagan, apparently because she was romantically involved with Brent Adams, one of Haskell’s employees who Haskell wanted to marry his daughter off to. Seriously.
Adams recalled an encounter with Haskell at his home in which Haskell attempted to convince Adams to break up with Hagan and instead date his daughter. Haskell stretched out his arms and told Adams, “All of this can be yours,” ostensibly referring to his Oxford mansion and the family’s money.
“You don’t need a piece of trash like Mallory. You need someone with class and money like my daughter,” he said, according to Adams.
That’s weird, right? I’m not the only person who thinks that’s weird, am I? But it goes on.
On Jan. 25, 2015, Weidner sent Haskell a photo of Hagan with three other former Miss Americas. Weidner did not comment on the photo in her email.
Haskell replied, saying, “OMG she is huge…and gross…why does he want that?????” Haskell did not name Adams specifically, but it appears he was discussing his employee, who was still dating Hagan at the time.
Haskell then forwarded the email to Josh Randle, who now serves as president of the Miss America Organization, and added, “Look at MH in this photo…OMG…Why does he want that?”
Randle said, “She’s a healthy one!! Hahaha.”
I mean, I suppose she gained a little bit of weight, but look at this picture of her from her Instagram. She looks gorgeous, I don’t even know what these guys are talking about,
And it didn’t end there. Hagan started a business coaching contestants on what to do during pageants, and how to answer the interview questions. Seemingly entirely to disrupt Hagan’s career, the Miss America pageant banned the use of coaches for contestants.
But really, did anyone think that beauty pageants were just run by friendly philanthropists who were looking out for women? There are better ways to give out a scholarship, ones that don’t have a swimsuit contest. I mean, Donald Trump used to run these things, of course they’re a hotbed of misogyny and personal vendettas.