Former Miss America Calls Board’s Request To Find New Leaders “Insulting”

Former Miss Americas, including Mallory Hagan and Gretchen Carlson, are not taking kindly to a request by board members to help them find new leadership for the embattled organization.

Hagan, who was the target of offensive emails by former Miss America Organization CEO Sam Haskell, told The Associated Press Thursday that the request is “an insult to every Miss America and volunteer’s intelligence.”

Hagan and Carlson, among others, also renewed calls for the entire board to resign.

On Wednesday, the organization said it is seeking the help of former Miss Americas and state directors to recommend new leadership for the pageant to fill current and anticipated vacancies among the directors.

In a Facebook video late Wednesday, Hagan accused board members of keeping leadership in place despite being provided with the emails months before they were published by Huffington Post last week.

“These people do not have the best interest of this program at heart, period,” Hagan said. “These people were presented with these emails and chose to overlook them, did nothing about them, thought this was a big fat nothing burger and voted to keep Sam Haskell and others in leadership in this program. That in and of itself should be enough for them to go.”

Carlson also called for the “resignation of all board members–who expressed “full confidence” in Haskell after reviewing his appalling emails,” she wrote in a series of tweets.

This all follows last week’s developments in which dick clark productions cut ties with the Miss America Organization after learning months earlier of offensive, sexist and cruel emails regarding past Miss America winners written by Haskell. Shortly afterward, Haskell resigned amid an investigation into the emails.