For those of you
just tuning in: Sheena Monnin, Miss Pennsylvania USA 2012, resigned on Tuesday,
claiming on Facebook that the weekend's pageant was rigged after another
contestant came across a list of who would place in the top five "BEFORE THE
SHOW EVER STARTED." Now, in a statement released to E! News, the Miss Universe
Organization says that Monnin stepped down for another reason
altogether
In an email to state
pageant organizers, she cited the Miss Universe Organization's policy regarding
transgendered contestants, implemented two months ago, as the reason for her
resignation. Today she has changed her story by publicly making false
accusations claiming that the pageant was fixed, however the contestant she
privately sourced as her reference has vehemently refuted her most recent
claim. We are disappointed that she would attempt to steal the spotlight from
Olivia Culpo of Rhode Island on her well-deserved Miss USA win.
The Miss Universe Organization forwarded along said e-mail
to E!, in which Monnin writes she won't be "part of a pageant system that
has so far and so completely removed itself from its foundational principles as
to allow and support natural born males to compete in it. This goes against
ever [sic] moral fiber of my being." In fact, Culpo won this year's
competition thanks in part to her response to the question "Would you feel
it would be fair that a transgender woman wins the Miss USA title over a
natural born woman?" Culpo answered:
I do think that it
would be fair, but I can understand that people would be a little apprehensive
to take that road because there is a tradition of natural born women, but today
where there's so many surgeries and so many people out there who have a need to
change for a happier life, I do accept that because I believe it's a free
country.
The entire discussion stems from 23-year-old Jenna Talackova
becoming the first-ever transgendered contestant to participate in the Miss
Universe Canada pageant last month. The times, they are a-changin', Sheena ...
time for another Facebook post, hmmm?
Update: Donald Trump, who runs the Miss Universe
Organization, spoke with Good Morning America, calling Monnin's original
allegation that the pageant was rigged "ridiculous" and saying that
he plans to take her to court:
We're going to be
suing her now because she made a charge and she said that it's fixed, and now
it turns out that it wasn't fixed ... She made a very false charge, and she
knows it was a false charge, and she suffers from a thing called loser's
remorse. She lost and if you looked at her compared with the people who were in
the top fifteen, you'd understand why she's not in the top fifteen.
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