Top leadership out at Miss America after controversial emails published

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- 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 Saturday, with the outgoing president apologizing to a winner whose weight he ridiculed. The scandal began Thursday, when the Huffington Post published leaked emails showing pageant officials ridiculing past Miss Americas, including crass and sometimes vulgar comments about them.  

The president, Josh Randle, told The Associated Press 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 Saturday. "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 respond to a message seeking comment on the resignations of Randle, CEO Sam Haskell and Chairman Lynn Weidner. 

Haskell had issued a statement Friday saying The Huffington Post report is "dishonest, deceptive and despicable" and based off emails that were "private emails that were stolen three years ago by ex-employees."

"Those who know my heart know that this is not indicative of my character, nor is it indicative of my business acumen," Haskell said. "I was under stress from a full year of attacks by two Miss Americas, and while I don't ever want to offer an excuse, I do want to offer context ...my mistake is a mistake of words." 

Weidner also did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Saturday. But a day earlier on Facebook, she defended herself against an allegation by former Miss America Gretchen Carlson that Weidner solicited former Miss Americas to attack other former title winners who were not supportive of Haskell. Weidner also expressed support for the Miss America Organization.

"I truly love our Miss America scholarship program and it has been a privilege to contribute and to serve for so many years as a full time volunteer," she wrote. "I have so much to be grateful for in my life and so much of that can be traced back to that day so long ago when I entered my local pageant."

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 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 Labor Day each year. Dick Clark Productions told the AP on Thursday that it cut ties with the Miss America Organization over the emails, calling them "appalling."

Also on Saturday, one of the main recipients of fundraising from the Miss America Organization said it was reviewing its association with Miss America. The Children's Miracle Network Hospitals said it was "conducting an immediate review of the situation and will take appropriate actions."

And New Jersey officials are reviewing their Miss America Organization contract, in which the state still owes $4 million toward the cost of next year's pageant.