The Dark Truth About Being Crowned Miss America

It's a 100-year-old institution and the world, particularly the notion of a woman's role in Western society, has changed a lot since it started, but winning the Miss America pageant is still a remarkable, singular achievement that can propel an average woman in her early twenties to overnight stardom. Although, to be honest, those who compete for and win the title of Miss America are anything but average — they're driven, high-achieving, telegenic, and they defeated a slew of other exceptional success stories from affiliated competitions in their own states to even get to the biggest and most famous pageant in the country. Among the many notable women to have worn the Miss America crown and sash are pop singers (Vanessa Williams), actors (Lee Meriwether), and TV journalists (Gretchen Carlson).

It's all happy crying and congratulatory deference when Miss America wins, but that glamorous veneer belies an organization and pageant subculture that's got big streaks of malfeasance, toxicity, and seediness. Here's a look into the dark side of Miss America.

While Black women, and women of color, were barred from the Miss America pageant in the 1940s, members of the also discriminated against Jewish community were ruled white enough to be eligible to compete. Bess Myerson, who came from a Russian-Jewish background, won the title of Miss America 1945, according to PBS's American Experience, despite alleged vocal and explicit reservations by pageant director Lenora Slaughter. The executive asked Myerson to change her name to Beth Merrick, so as to hide her ethnicity. Myerson refused. "It was the most important decision I ever made," Myerson told the Jewish Women's Archive. "It told me who I was, that I was first and foremost a Jew."

Myerson also received hostile pushback while performing her duties as Miss America. Three of the five sponsors of her post-victory national tour pulled out, and she was offered far less personal appearances than previous winners. One country club, which had booked the Miss America winner before she was crowned, cancelled the engagement when Myerson emerged victorious.

As of 2021, per The Jerusalem Post, Myerson remains the only Jewish woman to ever be crowned Miss America.

Miss America has long presented itself as a scholarship contest and a celebration of well-rounded women, recognizing the brightest, most talented, and most promising college-age ladies in the country from whom the country can expect big and impressive things in the years to come. None of this gels with the fact that until 2018, the Miss America pageant included a swimsuit portion. Every year, contestants would walk across the stage in a one-piece or bikini, strongly suggesting that Miss America was really about looks, female objectification, and enforcing rigid standards of beauty and weight.

Yolande Betbeze, Miss America 1951, was the first to question the necessity of the swimsuit factor. While she competed in and won the swimsuit portion, according to the The New York Times, Betbeze refused to participate in the standard Miss America activity of making public appearances in a bathing suit on a cross-country tour, sponsored by swimwear company Catalina. "I'm an opera singer, not a pinup!" was her official reason why.

That so upset the management at Catalina that they withdrew as a sponsor of the Miss America pageant completely. The company was so miffed that they helped organize and fund a rival pageant, Miss USA, which would proudly and unabashedly celebrate contestants in swimsuits.

Remember "good guy" Sam Haskell from a minute ago? Well, after leading the Miss America Organization for over a decade, he resigned in 2017 after two sources from inside the pageant sent three years worth of emails to and from Haskell full of nasty, offensive, and sexist language, prompting an investigation from HuffPost.

In an exchange with pageant telecast writer Lewis Friedman, Haskell replied "Perfect...bahahaha" when Friedman crassly joked that he'd changed all script references to former Miss America winners to an expletive. In another series of emails, Haskell and Friedman maligned former Miss America Kate Shindle, president of the Actors' Equity Association theatrical labor union and author of a book that called out how the Miss America board paid Haskell a $500,000 consulting fee despite being deeply in debt. When another former Miss America, Mary Ann Moby, died, Friedman discussed it with Haskell in an email titled "It should have been Kate Shindle." Haskell's reply: "Even in my sadness you can make me laugh." Haskell and Friedman also had horrible things to say about Miss America 2013, particularly after she gained weight, with Friedman comparing her to "a blimp in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade."

After 49 former Miss Americas wrote an open letter asking the board to take action, Haskell was suspended (before resigning) and Friedman was fired. A new leadership group stepped in, led by former Miss America and Fox News host Gretchen Carlson.

There's only one Miss America each year, selected from all 50 states and a few territories. But for a brief period in 2002, two women held rival claims for the title of Miss North Carolina. Early in 2002, per ABC News, Rebekah Revels (above left) won the Miss North Carolina pageant and was all set to contend for Miss America until a former boyfriend came forward and told organization directors that he was in possession of semi-nude photos of her. He didn't post them online or sell them to a media outlet — he just had them. But even posing for non-distributed racy photos was enough to violate the morality clause in Revels' contestant contract, so she resigned the post of Miss North Carolina and first runner-up Misty Clymer (above right) stepped into the position.

But then Revels decided she didn't want to quit and didn't need to, alleging that pageant officials had forced her to resign and that she hadn't even posed for the fated photos — the ex-boyfriend had snuck up on her and took the pics when she was changing clothes. Pageant officials wouldn't allow Revels to have her spot back, and nor did Clymer want to let her have it. Clymer ultimately represented as Miss North Carolina. while Revels filed a lawsuit against the pageant, which she lost after appealing all the way to the state Supreme Court. 

The Miss America pageant is apparently a hardcore stickler for the rules, even rules of its own making that are somewhat arbitrary. According to People, a Miss America contestant — meaning the winner of an individual state's qualifying event — can be no older than 24 years old. More specifically, competitors may not turn 25 by the end of the calendar year in which they'll appear in the Miss America pageant. That technicality got Amanda Longacre bumped out of the running and her title revoked. Named Miss Delaware 2014, Longacre was set to compete for Miss America until officials figured out she was too old, or at least would be, barely, by the end of the year.

In a dramatic appearance on Today (shown above), Longacre said, "It's like they're trying to erase me, in a way, like it never happened, and it's not fair because I won outright." Miss America's then-CEO Sam Haskell (remember that guy?) offered little pity, shifting the blame to the Miss Delaware organization. "It's up to the local and state organizations ... to make sure their contestants are eligible," he told ABC News, adding, "We leave that in their hands and only when it comes to us do we get into the specifics and double-check and triple-check."

Runner-up Brittany Lewis was named the new Miss Delaware instead. The good news? Longacre still got to keep the $9,000 scholarship she'd won.