Miss USA can't escape scandal. Now, pageant queens are questioning if the crown is worth it. (2024)

"It's moments like that, where you're able to connect with someone and have them feel comfortable and vulnerable with you, where you learn that what you do is really making an impact in other people's lives," Voigt said.

And when that glittering Miss USA crown was placed on her head, Voigt knew she wanted to educate "people on what it is to be a pageant girl today — what the real meaning of all this is."

Seven months later, Voigt and Miss Teen USA UmaSofia Srivastava relinquished their titles. No one had given up her crown in the pageant's 72-year history; now, two queens were gone within a week. Voigt'sresignation contained a cryptic statement on Instagram: "I AM SILENCED."

Interviews with over a dozen people connected to Miss USA and Miss Teen USA, including past winners, paint a picture not just of an organization in complete disarray, but of one that is pushing pageant queens back into a stereotype they've been fighting against for decades.

A pageant of never-ending scandals

Crystle Stewart promised an era of "Pageantry Reimagined" when she took over the Miss USA organization in 2020. Gone were the days when a beauty queen was just a "stereotypically slim woman with big hair and superb polish," Stewart, a former Miss USA, promised in a letter to fans. Instead, she wanted to show the "confidence and power that pageantry can give to young women."

Following a short and turbulent era marked by rigging allegations and a sexual-harassment cover-up involving her husband, Max Sebrechts, Stewart and the organization went their separate ways. When Laylah Rose was named the new president and CEO in August 2023, she echoed the same promises Stewart had made.

"We're not just parading onstage, and we're not just wearing heels," Rose told me in September, adding that she would make Miss USA "relevant to today." A few days later, in a speech she gave during the 2023 competition, Rose said she would allow the contestants to "use their voices for causes that speak to their heart."

But Voigt and Srivastava haven't been able to use their voice for much. The pageant queens are bound by nondisclosure agreements — a new requirement Rose introduced in 2023. Multiple contestants told me they'd been given their NDA abruptly with little time to look it over. Representatives for Miss USA and Rose did not respond to requests for comment.

"It was given to us with 24 hours' notice, late in the night — 'Sign this or you're not competing,'" Miss Kansas Haley Berger said. "Of course, all of us skimmed through it."

The NDA prevents Voigt and Srivastava from saying anything about the brand in perpetuity. So their mothers,Jackeline Voigt and Barbara Srivastava,took matters into their own hands.

When I talked to Jackeline and Barbara in May, it was clear their families had reached a breaking point. They'd watched their daughters achieve the titles they'd dreamed of for years, only for it to turn into something Barbara described as "eight months of torture and abuse."

Barbara and Jackeline said Rose's correspondence with their daughters was "very abusive, very diminishing, very gaslighting." Just two months into Srivastava's reign as Miss Teen USA, Barbara forbade Rose from contacting her 17-year-old daughter directly and began acting as their go-between.

"Our daughters were happy and excited to have the job of their lives when they won those crowns," Barbara said. "And to expect this is the payment on their self-esteem and their confidence, being bullied by a 46-year-old woman who just wants to be in the limelight herself — this is unacceptable."

In her official resignation letter as Miss USA, obtained by Business Insider, Voigt said she had to be prescribed two anxiety medications as she dealt with constant harassment from Rose. She wrote that she was suffering from "heart palpitations, full body shakes, unintentional weight loss, and loss of hair."

"She said, 'Mom, I have to do this because I cannot let her keep hurting me or hurting other girls,'" Jackeline told me.

Following Voigt's resignation, a Miss USA spokesperson said in a statement that the organization respected and supported her decision and that "the well-being of our titleholders is a top priority."

Fellow titleholders have followed Voigt and Srivastava's lead. Miss Colorado Arianna Lemus resigned her title in solidarity, and Stephanie Skinner — the first runner-up of Miss Teen USA — refused to take Srivastava's place, telling BI she'd "never give up" her integrity. Miss Hawaii Savannah Gankiewicz, the first runner-up at Miss USA 2023, has assumed Voigt's title.

"I support them and everything that they went through, and I am sorry that was what they experienced, but now it's time to just empower an organization that they believed in," Gankiewicz told me, adding that she hasn't had the same experience as Miss USA.

"Now, there are new winners that are about to step up this week, so it's time to spread love and show the new delegates and the new winners that they, too, can keep going for this dream," Gankiewicz said.

Multiple people who worked behind the scenes at Miss USA, including some state pageant directors who were part of the organization for decades, have also walked away from the organization.

Kimberly Nicewonder, a former Miss Virginia, left in May after running Miss Virginia and Miss Teen Virginia for three decades. Paula Miles — who ran the pageants for Alabama, Louisiana, and North and South Carolina — had been with Miss USA since 1979 before resigning on June 17. Both blamed Rose's leadership.

"It's been the worst year of our professional life," Ryan Miles, who was codirector with his mother, Paula, told me. "For her to walk away from something she built and the amount of lives she's changed, she wanted people's eyes to be open for what the organization has become."

One longtime Miss USA official, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from Rose, told me that multiple directors had been "destroyed financially" by her business decisions over the past year.

They also told me Rose's six-month pause hurt the brand and its employees. Many of the 2024 state pageants had already been scheduled, and some directors lost thousands of dollars — from their personal accounts — in deposits for vendors, venues, and hotels. Many prospective contestants decided not to compete after the pause was lifted.

"We've lost credibility, we've lost respect, and we've lost interest," the official said. "A lot of girls would just say, 'We thought you were no longer legit.'"

Conflicting priorities

Miss USA seemed on the precipice of a new modern era before the scandals began. Judges no longer asked contestants questions such as "What's your secret beauty tip?" and "How would you order a grilled-cheese sandwich in French?" Instead, the women onstage tackled issues as varied as the climate crisis and the Second Amendment.

According to the longtime Miss USA official, the significant shift was ushered in by the former Miss Universe Organization president Paula Shugart, who produced the Miss USA, Miss Teen USA, and Miss Universe pageants from 2001 until 2020. They said Shugart tried to infuse the pageant with more substance.

"It was definitely a beauty-oriented competition, but Paula tried to evolve it from being just about beauty pageants to being about the young women themselves as individuals," the official said. "She wanted the young women to be representatives of the country and have opinions and be heard."

Shugart asked state pageant directors to encourage their titleholders to watch the news and read "The Great American Citizenship Quiz" book to prepare for Miss USA, where hard-hitting questions about current events became the norm onstage. The interviews slowly became the most discussed moment of the pageant as flubs went viral, and responses to certain questions were debated online.

Some critics argued that these were "gotcha" questions. How could pageant queens be expected to answer issues the US government can't even figure out? But for many others, it was resonating. Miss USA was becoming a rare place where young women were loudly discussing their opinions on political issues — both conservative and progressive — on television. People were paying attention, including future pageant queens who wanted to feel that their voices mattered.

"This was one of the only circ*mstances or opportunities that I had to be asked tough questions that no other 20-year-old woman was being asked," Miss South Dakota 2023 Amber Hulse told me. "I've never found any other situation or activity where you would get that experience at such a young age, especially as a woman."

Olivia Culpo defended the rights of transgender women to compete in pageants before she won Miss USA in 2012. Donald Trump, who owned the pageant from 1996 to 2015, brought more attention to the moment during a Fox News appearance when he praised her for giving a "great answer."

Cheslie Kryst, who won Miss USA in 2019, defended the #MeToo movement during her interview round. Kára McCullough called herself an "equalist" instead of a feminist before she won in 2017, while Asya Branch vocalized her support for the Second Amendment in 2020.

When it was time to pass on the crown in 2020, Kryst praised the pageant for shattering the stereotype of "picture-perfect women who preach only world peace and refuse to divulge their thoughts beyond canned and on-the-fence responses."

"This is modern pageantry," Kryst wrote in her farewell letter. "And it has been a joy and a blessing to be a part of it."

Kryst was the first Miss USA winner I ever interviewed, and within minutes she dissipated any preconceived notions I'd held about pageant queens. Throughout her reign, we discussed abortion, the Supreme Court, marijuana legalization, and the Black Lives Matter movement. She believed Miss USA could still be relevant if it infused pageantry with advocacy.

"When fame wasn't so accessible through reality-TV shows and so many social-media platforms, women competed in pageants as a way to step into whatever goals they had," Kryst said during our last interview in 2020. "Now, there are so many ways people can achieve their dreams — whether it be TikTok or 'The Bachelor' — so pageantry has had to shift. And the fit is activism."

It was a perspective that inspired many pageant queens, including Hulse.

"Cheslie and I disagreed wildly on politics, but she was free to speak her mind, and I think that's a beautiful thing," the South Dakota pageant queen told me. "She still inspired me to want to compete and be Miss USA."

But Rose had a different idea for the pageant. Under her leadership, interview questions involving politics, religion, or sex were off-limits. The new rule baffled the 2023 Miss USA contestants, who found out mere seconds before their private interviews began during the preliminary competition.

Rose told me at the time that she had wanted to highlight the contestants' "own voice and her own story," but the rule change left many women questioning whether their platforms were now considered controversial.

Miss New York Rachelle di Stasio told The New York Times that one of the judges questioned whether she would still discuss her experience as a sexual-assault survivor if she won Miss USA. She replied yes, later wondering whether it was the reason she didn't make the top 20.

Hulse, who is running for state senate, told me she worried about discussing her political ambitions and advocacy for missing and murdered Indigenous women. And Lemus, who resigned as Miss Colorado, said she was baffled when one judge asked her, "If you were on your way to Miss Universe and your luggage got lost, what would you do?"

"I was like, 'I can't believe I'm here at Miss USA and they're asking this,'" Lemus said.

"I committed myself for eight years to finally be at the national pageant," she continued, calling it "pretty discrediting" to get such a question.

Past Miss USA contestants were also shocked by the drastic change. For some, it felt as if pageant queens were being shoved back into a box they had just spent the past 20 years climbing out of.

"Most women get into pageantry because they feel like there's a voice that's missing," Miss Utah 2020 Rachel Slawson, the first openly bisexual woman to compete at Miss USA, told me. "Taking that away from women is just really watering them down, and very disappointing when you spend so many years working to have a platform and have your voice heard."

"I think it's absurd. It's infuriating," said Miss Montana 2020 Merissa Underwood. "It removes any individuality to the titleholder so they can be used for anyone and anything. It feels akin to the beginning, when Miss USA was literally just about selling swimsuits."

'It doesn't go with our brand'

What struck me most about the Miss USA 2023 pageant, the first under Rose, was how little we learned about the women competing for the crown. In the two-hour telecast, the contestants collectively spoke onstage for five minutes. They were asked only one question: "As the brand ambassador for Miss USA, what will be your contribution to the organization?"

When I spoke with Voigt's and Srivastava's mothers in May, they said Rose repeatedly mentioned the importance of Miss USA's "brand." Jackeline and Barbara said Rose wouldn't allow their daughters to participate in any appearances or post anything on social media if she believed it didn't align with the organization's "aesthetic" — even when it involved their platforms or philanthropy work.

"She closed so many doors," Barbara said. "They would get request after request for appearances — in UmaSofia's case, for readings of her books and speaking at schools and conventions — and this woman kept saying: 'This is not approved. They're not main sponsors of the pageant, so it doesn't go with our brand.'"

"Noelia wanted to do appearances and had asked Laylah almost every day," said Claudia Michelle, who worked as Miss USA's social-media director for four months until she resigned in May. "Noelia would get opportunities directly to her inbox, and they would turn it down and say, 'Oh, it doesn't align with our brand.'"

According to Michelle, most of Voigt's appearances during her reign were for Supermodels Unlimited, a "pay-to-play" magazine owned by Miss USA's events manager, Kimberly Clark. In her resignation letter, Voigt said aligning the pageant with Supermodels Unlimited caused "responses of embarrassment, laughter, and disappointment from fans that you can see across social media." Supermodels Unlimited did not respond to a request for comment.

It was a remarkably different experience from those of past titleholders like Miss USA 2013 Erin Brady Colagiovanni and Miss Teen USA 2017 Sophia Dominguez-Heithoff.

"Being the face of Miss USA, any time you walked into a room — whether it was young girls at a school or a children's hospital — everybody's eyes glowed, and they were so inspired to meet you," Colagiovanni recalled. "That alone, that impact that you got to make throughout the year was incredible."

"The organization asked me, 'What do you want to do?' and I told them, 'I want to speak to as many young women as possible, and I want to meet as many young women as possible,'" Dominguez-Heithoff said. "My experience really showed me I wanted to have a meaningful impact on people's lives, and really showed me that my voice matters."

Though they were "brand ambassadors" of the organization, Voigt and Srivastava couldn't even post on the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA social-media pages. Barbara and Jackeline said Rose removed their daughters' access and began "impersonating" them in Instagram comments after Voigt and Srivastava alerted the Miss Universe Organization about Rose through emails.

"She has been going over and beyond! Love our president!" said one comment praising Rose from the official Miss USA account.

Is Miss USA still relevant?

There's an old quote from Miss USA 1973, Amanda Jones, that I have thought about a lot in the past two months. Jones spoke candidly to the author Studs Terkel about her experience in his 1984 book, "American Dreams: Lost and Found."

"If I could sit with every young girl in America for the next 50 years, I could tell them what I liked about the pageant. I could tell them what I hated. It wouldn't make any difference," she said. "There're always gonna be girls who want to enter the beauty pageant. That's the fantasy: the American dream."

It seems the organization is hoping this will remain true. Voigt and Srivastava remain bound to their NDAs. When I asked the Miss Universe Organization why there had been no official investigation into Rose, a spokesperson sent a statement saying the organization was a "beacon of women empowerment and diversity" and remained committed to "promoting inclusion, transparency, and integrity, which will not be swayed by unfounded allegations."

The CW Network —which has a three-year contract with Rose to air both the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants —also did not answer my repeated requests for an update after promising in May to investigate the allegations.

A new woman will be crowned Miss USA on August 4. It might feel like business as usual, but there's no denying that the past year has left a dark stain on an already vulnerable organization. Pageant queens have always had to swim against the current of society's expectations. Now, even people in the community are wondering what Miss USA still stands for.

"In some ways, the organization now is trying to be a B-list influencer, which is sad," Hulse, the pageant queen now running for state senate, told me. "That role is about advocacy and community service and having a message — but you can't do that if you're being silenced."

"I don't know that Miss USA is relevant right now," the longtime Miss USA official said. "It's gone from being just about beauty, to being about the women, to now not really being about anything at all."

July 30, 2024: This story has been updated to include comment from Savannah Gankiewicz.