Miss America says she is being bullied by pageant. 'My voice is not heard nor wanted'
Miss America 2018: Cara Mund of North Dakota
Gallery: Miss America 2018: Cara Mund of North Dakota
By Amy Kuperinsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
For much of the turmoil inside the Miss America pageant this summer, Miss America has remained on the sidelines.
No longer. Cara Mund, the reigning titleholder, has taken a bold step in coming out against the pageant leadership.
Mund, 24, has sent a lengthy letter to 11 former Miss Americas who petitioned this week for the resignation of Gretchen Carlson, the chairwoman of the Miss America board of trustees, Regina Hopper, the pageant's CEO, and the entire Miss America board.
In the detailed letter, which Mund calls "just the tip of the iceberg," she alleges that pageant leaders, including Carlson and Hopper, have silenced and bullied her and retaliated against her when she spoke publicly about being unhappy with how she was treated.
Read the letter from Miss America Cara Mund here
Mund charges that the pageant's "rhetoric about empowering women, and openness and transparency" is diametrically opposed to reality.
"I am living that difference," she writes. "To stay silent is to give away my power and the power of the women who will follow me." She acknowledges that as an employee of the Miss America Organization, she may be punished for speaking out, but says she chooses to do so as a matter of integrity.
"Our chair and CEO have systematically silenced me, reduced me, marginalized me, and essentially erased me in my role as Miss America in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on a daily basis," Mund writes. "After a while, the patterns have clearly emerged, and the sheer accumulation of the disrespect, passive-aggressive behavior, belittlement, and outright exclusion has taken a serious toll."
The Miss America Organization issued a brief response to Mund's letter on Friday.
"The Miss America Organization supports Cara," it said in a statement. "It is disappointing that she chose to air her grievances publicly not privately. Her letter contains mischaracterizations and many unfounded accusations. We are reaching out to her privately to address her concerns."
Mund, a graduate of Brown University who became the first North Dakota to win the crown last September, has served as Miss America during a time of prolonged scandal and conflict for the Atlantic City pageant, which is on the cusp of marking a century on the boardwalk. She says that Carlson and Hopper's leadership has proven even more harmful than that of the former CEO, who was pushed out after a scandal over his leaked emails in December.
With the start of the 2019 pageant a little more than two weeks away -- a contestant arrival ceremony is scheduled for August 30 in Atlantic City -- Mund's comments cast another long shadow over the immediate future of the pageant.
Mund, who deferred law school at the University of Notre Dame in order to compete one last time for Miss North Dakota, told The Press of Atlantic City at a charity event earlier this month that "it's been a tough year" and that she "wasn't always always heard or utilized or appreciated."
"The way I'm portrayed isn't always me," she said, adding that she could be punished for saying more.
Now, Mund says she has already been punished.
"Within 72 hours, I was told my final farewell as Miss America would be cut to a total of 30 seconds for the national telecast," she writes. "The following day, I was told my custom 'Show Me Your Shoes' Parade Costume which had already been made, publicized by the designer, and based on a July 2018 agreement with MAO would no longer be allowed."
Miss America 2018 says she also researched the definition for workplace bullying in New Jersey, which specifies "deliberate insults, threats, demeaning comments, constant criticism, overbearing supervision" and more.
"Ultimately, this is my year in a nutshell," she says, alleging that leaders engaged in spreading false information about her through a "concerning back channel."
A key point in Mund's account is that even when she was in the same room, she was left out of the picture. She is ostensibly the face of Miss America, but Mund says Carlson, Miss America 1989, was the only person allowed to give major interviews.
When Carlson announced the pageant's big decision to drop the swimsuit competition on "Good Morning America" in June, Mund asked to be a part of the interview, but ended up documenting the event with her phone instead. She says a producer was surprised to learn she was there and immediately asked for an interview.
"Right away, the new leadership delivered an important message: There will be only one Miss America at a time, and she isn't me," Mund writes.
Hilary Levey Friedman, a sociologist whose mother, Pamela Eldred, was Miss America 1970, has been critical of the pageant's decision to let Mund become a background player when those types of announcements are made, particularly in the case of the swimsuit competition.
While Miss Americas have certainly been sidelined in previous years and decades, silencing the titleholder while promoting women's voices -- "There's no question that that's problematic," she says.
"It's just showing the decline of Miss America more and more," she says of the disconnect that Mund described in her letter.
Levey Friedman, a former judge at Miss America's Outstanding Teen pageant, also happens to have been Mund's professor at Brown University. The class: "Beauty Pageants and American Society."
"When everything fell apart in December and January, they needed Gretchen Carlson," Levey Friedman says.
Cara Mund's Instagram account has hosted a series of not-so-subliminal messages in recent weeks. (Instagram: @realcaramund)
"She was very much in the public eye on a topic that related to what led to the email scandal," she says, referring to Carlson's sexual harassment lawsuit against former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. As a result, Carlson had become a strong voice in the emerging #MeToo movement. The former Miss America CEO, Sam Haskell, had been pushed out after his emails revealed misogynistic language and demeaning comments about former Miss Americas.
Now, she think the woes of the pageant can only be cleared up by someone who has experience restoring the reputation and finances of nonprofit organizations.
But could Miss America fire its Miss America? Levey Friedman doesn't think it's in the cards.
Critics of the Miss America leadership have also pointed out that Mund's ability to control the Miss America official Instagram account, which had also controlled by past titleholders, was taken away. The Miss America Organization now posts from the account.
Among those critics is Betty Cantrell Maxwell, Miss America 2016.
"They definitely are very controlling over you during your year," Cantrell Maxwell, 23, told NJ Advance Media before Mund sent her letter. But something Cantrell Maxwell did control was the Miss America Instagram account, she said. The platform allows Miss America to communicate directly with others in the pageant community, including young women who aspire to her position.
"I can tell from Cara's social media posts how sad she is ... You can just tell she's almost crying out for help. They are not giving her a voice."
Life has an odd way of making things work out in the end . . . . #forshadowing #future #everythingwillbeok #keepdreaming #nevergiveup #youcandoit
A post shared by Cara Mund - Miss America 2018 (@realcaramund) on Aug 12, 2018 at 9:50am PDT
In her letter, Mund, who now posts from her @realcaramund account, claims she was blamed for sponsors dropping the pageant because she was "bad at social media." But Mund has successfully telegraphed her unhappiness via a series of Instagram posts by way of inspirational quotes and mantras and four bookmarked updates that spell out the phrase "my voice will matter" (see image above).
Cantrell Maxwell is one of the 11 former Miss Americas calling for Carlson and Hopper's resignation. The petition from the 11 former Miss Americas, posted on Monday, currently has about 4,600 signatures.
"Miss America is engaged in a great struggle about its identity and its future direction," a petition from the group reads.
In her letter, Mund says that the alleged misdeeds of current leaders make the previous administration look good.
"I truly felt more valued, respected, and viewed as a real collaborator within my first three months rather than these last eight months," she writes. "The differences in treatment are stark."
Jaime Gialloreto, the current Miss New Jersey, who will be among 51 contestants competing for the crown on Sept. 9, said it was "really disheartening" to read Mund's letter.
"I have nothing but respect for her for standing up to the organization," said Gialloreto, 19, who lives in Woolwich Township and is a student at Loyola University Maryland.
"Talking to some of the other girls, it definitely shifts the mood," she says. "It's upsetting for us because we love her and she's such a positive person to be around."
Gialloreto and Cantrell Maxwell have numbered among the titleholders who criticized the pageant's decision to drop its swimsuit competition. After Carlson announced in June that Miss America would no longer judge contestants on physical appearance, 22 state pageant directors, including New Jersey's director, Sally Johnston, signed a letter asking for the resignation of Carlson, Hopper and the pageant board.
Critics said the swimsuit decision was made under false pretenses -- that board members were led to believe the pageant's broadcast on ABC could be canceled if the swimsuits remained. The leadership denied this, but said the cooperation of production partners did hinge on the swimsuit issue.
The reigning Miss New Jersey said she doesn't know what could happen as a result of Mund's comments, but that she still has her eyes on the prize.
"One of us will get her job in just a few short weeks," Gialloreto said. "For me, I'm just trying to stay positive throughout the entire process. At the end of the day, I still want to be Miss America."
Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.