Miss America chairwoman Gretchen Carlson is being sued by four state pageant organizations as well as an ousted board member who claim the former Fox News host conned them into getting rid of the iconic swimsuit competition this year.
Ex board member Jennifer Vaden Barth, along with the Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee, and West Virginia pageants, filed a suit against Carlson and CEO Regina Hopper in Atlantic County, New Jersey on Wednesday.
This comes days after it was reported the Miss America Organization had revoked the licenses for New York, New Jersey, and Florida.
A total of seven states, including the ones who have filed the complaint, have had their licenses revoked, with Colorado resigning in protest.
The suit seeks to obtain a temporary restraining order and injunction that will restore order in the organization while the case is pending.
In court documents Carlson is accused of ‘illegally’ taking over as chairwoman and making changes to the pageant without the approval of the board.
These changes include Carlson’s infamous decision to ax the swimsuit contest in June, which the complaint says was approved after she told trustees the portion would have to be eliminated or the pageant would not be televised.
Miss America chairwoman Gretchen Carlson (pictured December 12) and CEO Regina Hopper have been accused of orchestrating an ‘illegal and bad-faith takeover’ of the organization
Plaintiffs claim Carlson and CEO Regina Hopper have manipulated Miss America rules and allegedly ignored bylaws to ‘suit their own personal purposes’
According to the suit, ‘the trustees later found out that this representation was false, misleading, and without basis.’
Carlson would later appear on Good Morning America to announce the new changes, which she connected to the #MeToo movement, ‘none of which had been discussed, vetted, much less voted upon and approved, by the board.’
Both Carlson and Hopper are accused of trying to suit their own personal needs by conducting an ‘illegal and bad-faith takeover of MAO (Miss America Organization)’ which allegedly began when Carlson took over as chairwoman on January 1.
The suit claims that following the resignation of former executive chairman Sam Haskell in December 2017, for calling contestants ‘fat and gross’, Carlson allegedly staged a coup and made herself head of the board, defying the election process and MAO bylaws.
Carlson’s takeover also saw her appoint Hopper without the board’s approval and implement pre-resignation letters to certain board members including Barth, according to the complaint.
When Carlson’s authority was questioned, the suit alleges she ‘would become hostile, aggressive, and intimidating,’ adding, ‘This hostile behavior would create an environment where Trustees could not freely share their input, expertise, and/or concerns.’
Purportedly seeking to further their own personal agendas, Carlson and Hopper also allegedly withheld information from trustees and signed off decisions on their own on multiple occasions, including their move to eliminate potential TV partners in favor of one that would personally benefit Carlson, as well as announcing major changes in the pageant without approval from the board.
Efforts to unseat Hopper and Carlson began in June, when seven board members met to suggest a proposal that would limit the chairwoman’s power and called for a vote.
So far, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, New York, New Jersey, and Florida have had their licenses revoked, with Colorado resigning in protest
According to the complaint, Carlson, who was on the phone, ‘immediately became belligerent, hateful, and began yelling at the Board about the proposal, saying that the current board is screwing up all of the progress she had made.’
Four members, including Barth, voted in favor of the proposal, resulting in a 4-3 outcome.
However, Carlson allegedly made it clear she would not accept the results by hanging up the phone, effectively ending the meeting.
Barth alleges that days after the meeting, when she was on vacation, she was informed Carlson had accepted her and another board member’s resignation, despite neither having voluntarily resigned.
She claims the former Miss America titleholder illegally removed her and her colleague as trustees, citing the pre-resignation letters which Barth says at that point, were void.
The suit states Carlson’s alleged dictatorship also caused two additional board members to step down and more than a dozen staff have resigned during the battle over MAO’s leadership.
Barth claims Carlson and Hopper ‘have characterized anyone who opposes their decisions and those who are resistant to national pageant changes, primarily the elimination of the iconic swimsuit competition, as troublemakers and a “noisy minority.”
The suit claims Carlson and Hopper have manipulated the organization’s bylaws and signed off on major decisions on their own such as the elimination of the swimsuit portion, without approval from the board
‘This could not be any farther from the truth.’
Barth called the lawsuit ‘the first step in restoring the integrity and credibility of Miss America which has been a cultural icon since 1921.’
In a statement to DailyMail.com, Carlson maintained she was elected to her position and MAO unanimously agreed to get rid of the swimsuit portion of the pageant.
‘Certain Directors who voted for the change later sought to seize control of the Organization by spewing disinformation and aligning themselves with those who opposed the change,’ she said.
‘These people have seriously harmed an organization they profess to care about and have personally maligned its leadership as part of a scheme to take power and turn back the clock. This lawsuit is just the latest unseemly effort to achieve those objectives.
‘Lawsuits will not reinstate swimsuits.’
Hopper responded to the allegations on behalf of the organization on Thursday in a statement to Press of Atlantic City saying: ‘This meritless action is being taken by a handful of persons acting in gross violation of their legal obligations and is led by disgruntled and conflicted former directors who have little understanding of nonprofit governance.’
Barth has formed a GoFundMe account called the Miss America Organization Leadership Change Fund that has raised more than $22,000 to help states defend themselves and advocate for new leadership.
When this year’s pageant was held in September, 46 of the 51 state pageant organizations (the District of Columbia is included) had called on the two to resign, along with 23 former Miss Americas.
It followed the release of a remarkable letter from the outgoing Miss America, Cara Mund, in which she said she had been marginalized and bullied by top pageant leaders.
An investigation commissioned by the Miss America Organization found no evidence to back up that claim, but investigators did not interview Mund for the report.
Carlson, who was Miss America in 1989, has said that the decision to eliminate the swimsuit competition has made the pageant more relevant and has been praised by many supporters who considered the pageant outdated and demeaning to women.
But many state officials say their dissatisfaction stemmed not from swimsuit elimination, but by the way Carlson and CEO Regina Hopper run the organization.
Carlson said in August that the organization needed to heal a rift that saw more than a dozen state groups call for her and other top leaders to resign.
At the time, Carlson said Miss America officials at all levels need to be ‘on the same page’.
She also dismissed critics as ‘a noisy minority’ unhappy over the elimination of the swimsuit competition from this year’s nationally televised broadcast and resistant to change in general.