Three Miss America Organization leaders resign after report about emails

Three leaders of the Miss America Organization resigned Saturday, two days after a report revealed purported emails from them and other employees disparaging pageant contestants.

Miss America Organization (MAO) CEO Sam Haskell, President Josh Randle and board of directors Chairman Lynn Weidner resigned, according to statements from Dan Meyers, the interim chairman of the organization's board of directors.

Weidner and Randle will stay on for the time being to "facilitate a smooth transition" at the request of the board, Meyers' statements said.
Haskell's resignation -- which is effective immediately, the statement said -- came the day after he was suspended following the report on the emails, which the MAO's board has said were obtained illegally.

The Huffington Post on Thursday published an exclusive report that reviewed nearly three years of internal MAO emails provided by two unidentified sources.

The report detailed email exchanges in which Haskell, Randle, Lewis Friedman -- formerly a writer for MAO -- and board members Weidner and Tammy Haddad wrote offensive emails about former Miss America winners, referencing their weight or their private sex lives.

In a statement sent to CNN Saturday, Randle said he "inappropriately responded to an email" that was sent to him about former Miss America Mallory Hagan. He apologized to Hagan for his "lapse in judgement," the statement said.

"However," the statement said, "this article implies alleged complicit participation on my part in a years-long array of inappropriate email communication, which is grossly misleading."
Randle said the "most egregious emails" predate his employment with MAO, which he joined in March 2015, the statement said.

Haddad -- a former executive producer for CNN who left the network in the early 1990s -- resigned Friday.

In a statement issued Friday night regarding his suspension, Haskell apologized for "a mistake of words," but said he had been stressed "from a full year of attacks by two Miss Americas."
He did not name those women in the statement.

Haskell went on to say the Huffington Post's story was "dishonest, deceptive, and despicable."

"This was not the CEO of an organization laughing at inappropriate jokes and speaking about a former Miss America in email conversations," he said. "This was a father whose family was being attacked, and a man whose character was being assassinated daily, which impaired my judgment when responding to the inappropriate emails sent to me about them. For that, I deeply apologize."

Following the report, dozens of Miss Americas -- dating to 1948 -- called for the resignation of MAO's leadership, including Haskell, Randle, Haddad and Weidner.

"As dedicated members of communities, businesses and families, and ambassadors for the Miss America program across the country, we stand firmly against harassment, bullying and shaming -- especially of women -- through the use of derogatory terms meant to belittle and demean," the former Miss Americas said in a statement.

"We collectively call for their immediate resignation."

Emails targeted former contestants
In some instances, Huffington Post reported, Haskell appeared to condone degrading comments others made about the women, or suggest that those comments were funny to him.

One example was an email from Friedman to Haskell, who wanted to refer to past pageant winners as "formers" instead of "forevers." Friedman said he'd changed "forevers" to "c****," to which Haskell replied: "Perfect...bahahaha"

The nonprofit organization, which hosts the competition, was founded in 1921 and claims to be a "movement of empowering young women everywhere to achieve their dreams," according to its website.

Mallory Hagan, who was crowned Miss America in 2013, was one of Haskell's targets, according to the report, which references one email exchange in which he and Friedman demean her for her weight after she won the pageant.

Credit: CNN.COM