Look Inside the Miss USA Controversy

Laylah Rose claims that she won her first pageant when she was just 2. She continued to enter numerous more with a measured smile and glossy dark hair. However, she aspired to greater things even as a child. Rose wanted to do more than just wear a sash, like her mother and grandmother did: She aspired to serve as Miss USA.

Rose, 45, whose legal name is Laylah Loiczly, got there in the summer. “Opportunities to improve, enhance, and in many ways repair the iconic brand,” she stated in an email.

The need for those repairs was great. Miss USA has gone through allegations of racism and sexual harassment in recent years and has passed from owner to owner, including Donald Trump. The 2022 self-destruction of Miss USA 2019 sent the association staggering. Rose’s predecessor was fired in 2023 amid allegations of pageant rigging.

In her most memorable months responsible for the exhibition, Rose got to work. ( According to a preliminary deal document, she paid $1.5 million for the rights to manage Miss USA.) She got a long term manage The CW to communicate the Miss USA expo interestingly beginning around 2016. Renato Basile, the Hollywood producer she hired to work on the project, said in an interview that she was responsible for “bringing the luster back to Miss USA and Miss Teen.”

However, the reigning Miss USA and Miss Teen USA, Noelia Voigt and Uma Sofia Srivastava, resigned within days of each other, less than a year into Rose’s tenure as the organization’s president and CEO. In the event’s seven-decade history, no victor had at any point stopped.

Cautious eyewitnesses distinguished what they accept to be a mystery message concealed in Voigt’s Instagram post reporting her renunciation: ” I remain silent.

The takeoffs shook the show world, yet were not exactly surprising to the individuals who knew Rose. Rose was said to be prone to overpromise and under deliver in interviews with more than two dozen insiders from the pageant industry. They described her as abrasive and self-centered, recalling frequent staff turnover. Numerous individuals claimed that the organization’s toxic environment was created by her.

Kimberly Nice wonder, the longtime director of the Virginia pageants, stated of the former Miss USA, “I’m not surprised that Noelia stepped down.” I simply assumed that it would have occurred sooner.

Disillusioned with the Crown There were a number of issues simmering within Miss USA that were typical for a tight-knit professional community:

With a new leader who seemed to suddenly turn everything upside down, there was interpersonal conflict, dysfunction, and disappointment. However, large numbers of the members and state chiefs — who run the state-level shows that send their victors to the Miss USA occasion — felt those issues uncovered further strains inside a foundation in conflict with its own expressed mission of ladies’ strengthening.

Dick Clark, Bob Barker, and Andy Cohen served as hosts on the televised Miss USA pageant for decades. The winners were proto-influencers who appeared on red carpets and traveled the country to support personal causes. Some people used the pageant as a jumping off point for professional careers, like Miss USA 1980 Shawn Weatherly, who went on to star in “Baywatch.” Halle Berry put as first sprinter up in 1986.

However, in recent years, the pageant has lost its cultural significance.

According to the author of “Here She Is:” Hilary Levey Friedman, “Interest in Miss USA is way, way down from where it was in the last century and even earlier in this century.” The Extensive History of the American Beauty Pageant

She stated, “There are just too many more opportunities for women now than in the 1950s.”

According to her mother, Jackeline Voigt, Voigt was dissatisfied with the circumstances following her acceptance of the glittering crown in September of that year. Noelia Voigt declined an interview through a representative citing a nondisclosure agreement.

The new Miss USA started making the regular arrangements for the Miss Universe show, which was being held that November in El Salvador. Previously, the overseer of Miss USA had went with the champ to the worldwide occasion. Rose was expected to act similarly, according to Voigt.

However, Rose was not present at the event. Jackeline Voigt, on the other hand, went to the pageant alone with her daughter. Rose stated that a family issue prevented her from attending.)

When Voigt and her mother came back to the United States, they encountered additional difficulties. As a component of her title, Voigt expected to get a $100,000 compensation, an extravagance vehicle and a loft in Los Angeles to live in as long as necessary. It appeared to be a realistic expectation: One of the hosts of the Miss USA televised show rattled off a list of prizes that the winner would receive, including a car and an apartment. In an email, Rose stated that the other prizes were not guaranteed, despite the fact that Voigt’s contract included a salary.

Nonetheless, according to Jackeline Voigt, Rose informed Voigt in December that the organization had secured her a new apartment. Voigt, who had already moved out of her Utah apartment, ended up staying with friends and family when it didn’t happen. She trusted in her show mentor, Thom Brodeur, about her lodging circumstance. Brodeur stated that he jokingly referred to her as “the homeless Miss USA.”

In the end, Miss USA gave Voigt a car and a place to live in Miami in March.

It was insufficient. Voigt left his position two months later. The allegations that she did not receive her apartment and car in a timely manner were detailed in her internal resignation letter, which The New York Times obtained. She wrote that being Miss USA had had an effect on her health and that she struggled with anxiety and took medication to deal with it.

She also talked about a case of sexual harassment in which her car’s driver made an inappropriate comment at a Christmas parade in Sarasota, Florida, last year. He inquired as to whether she was “into elderly people men with cash,” Jackeline Voigt said her girl had told her. Voigt stated in her resignation letter that the company did not support her when she reported the incident.

Srivastava, the Miss Teen USA, had her own issues with Rose and the Miss USA organization. Her mom, Barbara Srivastava, said in a meeting that Rose could be grating in messages with her then-16-year-old girl. ( Rose described herself as “professional and appropriate” in her communication style.) Due to a nondisclosure agreement, the younger Srivastava declined to comment.

Barbara Srivastava said she in the long run requested that Rose quit speaking with her girl out and out: ” “I don’t want that woman to bully my daughter,” I declared.

Rose would likewise utilize the authority Miss USA and Miss Adolescent USA Instagram records to leave positive remarks about herself, which were made to look as though they were composed by Voigt and Srivastava, said Claudia Michelle Engelhardt, who ventured down from her job as online entertainment chief for Miss USA in May. Rose denied this case.

Srivastava’s folks had an uncertain outlook on the best way to deal with the circumstance. Their daughter was relatively new to the pageant world, in contrast to many competitors in Miss Teen USA. When she won, they had no idea what to expect.

Barbara Srivastava contacted Mario Bucaro, Miss Universe’s vice president for international relations who is in charge of Miss USA and Miss Teen USA, in March. In the hope that the organization would address the manner in which their daughter was being treated, she and her husband participated in a number of video calls with Rose and Bucaro.

Barbara Srivastava stated that, despite their cordial nature, the meetings accomplished little. She reviewed that Bucaro, a previous Guatemalan representative, commended her little girl and said the association could assist with her fantasies about going to Harvard College.

“‘She’s beginning and end that a Miss USA and a Miss Universe ought to be,'” Barbara Srivastava was told in one gathering.

The “Fyre Fest” of Pageants Rose was wronged by more than just the winners. Rose did not ask some state directors to introduce themselves at their first meeting, according to some directors. Because they feared retaliation from Rose, all current state directors interviewed for this article were granted anonymity.)

According to several state directors who are aware of the situation, Rose informed the directors shortly thereafter that the local pageants were being put on hold. As a result, at least one director will be responsible for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for events that are scheduled to take place just a few weeks from now.

Additionally, the decision had an impact on hundreds of women from all over the country who participate in state pageants year-round and frequently spend thousands of dollars on travel, attire, coaching, and entry fees.

Vanilla day Carter, 27, who lost $400 on a makeup team she had booked to compete in the Miss Washington USA pageant, stated, “I thought I was being pranked.”

Rose kept the planned September date for the national Miss USA competition because the 2023 state winners had already been chosen. Five of the women who entered Miss USA 2023 claim that under Rose, the pageant was haphazard.

Regan Ringler, 26, who won the title of Miss Tennessee USA, said, “‘Chaos’ is the best word I can use to describe the Miss USA pageant.” She made the joke that it was like the “Fyre Fest” of pageants because so many things went wrong.

Issues emerged before the opposition even began. The Times was able to obtain a 25-page “Official Entry Form/Contract” from which contestants were required to sign in order to participate in Miss USA and Miss Teen USA. The document gave the organization permission to do “physical and mental examinations” of contestants and to ask any doctor who had ever treated them for their medical records. Additionally, it granted Miss USA the authority to fire her in the event of “facial or physical disfigurement.”

According to Rose, contestants for Miss USA had a month to sign the documents, but emails obtained by the Times show that multiple women received them after 8 p.m. on the day they were due. They could not attend the event if they did not sign.

The pageant started off poorly. A few Miss High schooler USA competitors showed up at the air terminal with nobody there to welcome them or assist them with getting to the scene, different state chiefs said.

Rose refuted these claims. She wrote, “All teens had chaperones and security. They were supervised.”

The interview portion of the event did not go as planned for some Miss USA contestants. Interviews are the only chance for contestants to be judged on something other than their looks, and they make up half of a contestant’s score.

Rose entered and made an announcement while contestants waited in a holding room during the pageant. Rachelle di Stasio, 27, who competed as Miss New York USA 2023, stated, “There’s going to be no political questions, nothing about religion, nothing about sex.”

A few ladies felt that Rose was deterring them from discussing the more considerable bits of why they needed to procure the stage that accompanied Miss USA’s crown. ( In an email, Rose stated that she instructed judges not to inquire about such matters unless they were a contestant’s platform.)

Di Stasio had planned to talk about her work as an advocate and her experience as a sexual assault survivor during her time as Miss New York. The judges inquired about her ballet career. The conversation then changed to: The following question was specifically posed to me by this judge: If you were to win Miss USA, would you still talk about these issues and your platform?

“The public stage should be a place of refuge for these young ladies to proceed to have their voices heard and have the option to advance their own foundation and exhibit their magnificence and their solidarity and their knowledge,” Nicewonder, the Virginia chief, said. ” It’s simply not a place of refuge any longer.”

After three decades, she left the Miss USA organization a few months later. She stated that one of her reasons was the new leadership’s “unprofessionalism.”

A Questionable Future

In the consequence of Voigt’s and Srivastava’s acquiescences, the once-desired Miss USA and Miss High schooler USA crowns have become hot potatoes. Savannah Gankiewicz, the new Miss USA and Voigt’s runner-up, stated that she had experienced “bullying and harassment” since taking the crown. The subsequent candidate for Miss Teen USA turned down the opportunity.

The television deal with The CW, one of Rose’s achievements, is under scrutiny. In a statement released last month, the CW stated that the network is “evaluating its relationship with both pageants.”

According to some directors, disillusioned with the significance of the crown and sash they had once so fervently sought, would-be contestants of state-level pageants have been withdrawing from the competition as a result of the recent drama. Eight of Brodeur’s clients, the pageant coach said, had decided not to compete this year. Voigt is still asking to be let out of her nondisclosure agreement on social media.

Rose does not appear to be planning to step down, despite the wishes of many in the pageant community. She stated to the Times that she was anticipating more exciting developments at Miss USA.