Former Miss America Mallory Hagan already sees the influence of Gretchen Carlson, just two days after the former Fox News host was named chair of the Miss America Organization.
“One of the things she’s already bringing is transparency,” Hagan told Cheddar in an interview. “We didn’t know what was happening behind closed doors, we didn’t know what the reasoning behind a lot of the rules were. It was just, ‘This is the way it’s going to be, or you gotta get out.’ It became a very cult like community.”
Carlson’s appointment, along with three other former pageant winners who were named to the board, follows a chain of resignations from the organization. Former CEO Sam Haskell and ex-chairman Lynn Weidner resigned after a report that leaders used demeaning language to refer to participants in emails.
Hagan, who won the crown in 2013, was mentioned herself in the emails.
“It was hard to stomach...To see it in black and white was difficult.” she said. “But to know there was a person who stood up for me, and not only me but all the women in the Miss America program, was really something that was very special to me.”
Carlson has been vocal in her efforts to combat sexual harassment, most recently working with members of Congress to introduce legislation that puts an end to arbitration clauses in workplace agreements. She also was the first to publicly accuse Roger Ailes, the late CEO of Fox News, of sexual harassment.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/gretchen-carlson-is-the-new-miss-america-chairman).
The chief suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway has admitted he beat the young Alabama woman to death on a beach in Aruba after she refused his advances. New details in the killing emerged Wednesday as Joran Van der Sloot pleaded guilty to extorting Holloway's mother, resolving a case that has captivated the public’s attention for nearly 20 years.
The trial of a Fugees rapper, who was convicted this year in multimillion-dollar political conspiracies, stretched across the worlds of politics and entertainment — and now the case is touching on the tech world with arguments that his defense attorney bungled the case, in part, by using an artificial intelligence program to write his closing arguments.
Israel said Wednesday that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the first crack in a 10-day siege on the territory. Palestinians reeled from a massive blast at a Gaza City hospital that killed hundreds the day before and grew increasingly desperate as food and water supplies ran out.
A 4000-year-old slab of rock is being dubbed a treasure map for archaeologists. The rock was found in 1900 at the site of an ancient tomb in northwestern France and it was declared Europe's oldest known map in 2021.
Hundreds of people gathered for a vigil honoring a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy who was stabbed to death over the weekend by his family's landlord in an apparent hate crime.
