| Subject: HOW DID WE GET HERE? PART 2-SAM HASKELL |
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Date Posted: 13:54:45 12/19/21 Sun
You haven't lived until you sat through one of Sam Haskell's self-congratulatory soliloquys. (I say this with the deepest sense of sarcasm.) He single-handedly saved the Miss America Organization, a feat worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize. And it was all because of the love of his mamma. He is a good, Southern boy raised with manners, love for his family, and oh did you know this? He is married to a former Miss Mississippi. Night after preliminary night, you would hear how the former most successful agent at the William Morris Agency managed the strength to pull himself away from there, devastating A listers like Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, to head up and save a struggling organization.
The real story is Sam Haskell came onto the MAO Board of Directors at the time when Art McMaster was still the CEO. It was widely believed and speculated upon that while Art had the title, Sam was the actual orchestrator of what happened in the organization. When Art decided to step down, Sam was waiting to take his place. Sam filled the board of directors with such close, personal friends as the late Phyllis George, Lynn Weidner, and Tammy Haddad. Everything was GREAT under Haskell. The organization was great, the winners were like his own daughters, everything was great. The MAO was better than it had ever been. Sam would take a good half an hour at the end of every program to congratulate himself and let everybody know how the future was very bright for the MAO. Finances were never really mentioned under him. Just everything was great. Sam would pose with selfies with the contestants, he would gush over some of them in their preliminary win interviews. Sam Haskell took an annual $500k salary from the organization as well. It was widely criticized in pageant circles, despite his claims that everything was going well.
In 2017, the MeToo movement began when women in entertainment and journalism blew the whistle on sexual harassment and assault from men in the worlds of entertainment and media. One of those women was former Miss America Gretchen Carlson, who spoke about the harassment from the late former president of Fox News Roger Ailes. The MeToo movement opened the floodgate for women to feel safe telling their stories of everything from discrimination to sexual assault. In December 2017, Huffington Post published a bombshell story with several years worth of emails obtained from people within the Miss America Organization. The self-proclaimed good Southern boy who loves his mamma was actually a calculating, misogynistic, and vicious man. He made derogatory statements about former Miss Americas regarding their weight and their personal lives, for which he had little basis. If you were not on his side, he considered you an enemy and was out to get you. Specifically, he wanted his daughter to date MAO employee Brent Adams rather than Mallory Hagan. Because Adams would not respond to Sam's demands that he date his daughter and instead chose to date Mallory, Sam directed that ire towards Mallory instead. He attacked her weight and said horrible things about her romantic life. He wanted to try and tank her profesionally. Both Mallory and former Miss America Betty Cantrell's careers were deliberately targeted by Sam and his connections in the entertainment industry. Sam also directed his ire towards former Miss America Kate Shindle, who wrote a book critical of his $500k a year salary due to the fact that at the time, the MAO was $400k in the red. The scathing report included email exchanges from employees and board members. Because of the egregious revelations, Sam was suspended from and ultimately resigned as the CEO of the Miss America Organization and has been absent from public life since.
It is also important to note that during Sam Haskell's tenure, an episode of the political show Last Week Tonight With John Oliver exposed the talking points that the organization provided $45 million dollars in scholarships. The MAO took some heat because of it and needed to clarify and redo their messaging. There were longstanding issues with finances that while Sam tried to spin it positively, could not be ignored. And, during this time, sponsors were either leaving or hard to come by. Mallory Hagan brought a shoe company on as a sponsor. However, it was reported that the relationship was mishandled and they were alienated. It is true that in some regards, the tenure of Sam Haskell was positive. He was able to orchestrate the move back to network television and for the pageant to be owned by Dick Clark Productions. However, the success was short lived as ultimately, the pageant had to pay ABC for airtime. Major cracks were starting to form in the system, and under Sam Haskell's leadership things behind the scenes were being ignored. And, the culture was quite toxic.
It is really not widely understood how the finances of an already struggling organization were impacted the Sam Haskell scandal. However, any sponsor would understandably be hesitant to lend their sponsorship to an organization with such a black eye.
A smiling face hid a toxic and crumbling infrastructure at the Miss America Organization.
Part 3 coming tomorrow
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