Transcript of Cracks in the Crown: Troubles Inside Miss Universe and Miss USA

Denmark.

The Universe has its new queen.

Miss Denmark, Victoria Kirtelvig, has just been crowned the new Miss Universe.

The 21-year-old animal rights activist and aspiring lawyer made history, beating out more than 120 other participants to become the first dame to clench the title.

She has been on everybody's favorite list. She's unique. Miss Universe has not had a blonde queen since 2004.

For the first time in over a decade, Miss USA failing to place in the semifinals at the pageant. A West Point graduate, Alma Cooper, is the first active duty soldier ever to win Miss USA. She's currently also studying for a master's degree at Stanford. For over seven decades, Miss Universe has been perhaps the most revered and beloved pageant on Earth. The spotlight from the international event, powerful.

Winning changes your life. If you look at the past winners, there is a clear career-breaking point of before and after being Miss Universe. But even being in the top five can change your life in your country.

There are a million pageants out there of different sizes, calibers, and reputation. But the fact that Miss Universe stands above all of them. Miss Universe is truly the Olympics of beauty.

But cracks in the Crown have begun to show recently, painting a picture of an organization in disarray.

There's a reckoning happening in pageantry. It really, truly may be the end of Miss USA or Miss Universe.

From the contracts, participants must sign in order to compete.

What these women are waiving their rights to be able to sue, to me, is astronomical, and that's not empowering in any way, shape, or form.

To the legal troubles facing the owners. Things got really bad between you quickly. Yes. To the patent production itself.

It was a total disaster. It lacked that magic, that Miss Universe magic that many of us were accustomed to.

Rafa Delphine is a hard hardcore pageant fan who's been covering pageants for nearly three decades. He covered Miss Universe for his blog, Critical Beauty. He points to the brief on-screen time that the record number of candidates, 41 more than last year, were given this year in the iconic evening gown round in the preliminaries, compared to the longer exposure they had in previous years, which gives judges more time to evaluate participants. These videos are unedited by by ABC News.

How in the world could you possibly allow 127 girls? Many of them took six months to a year to prepare, only to come to Mexico and just stand there for one or two seconds. This is a business. The more country you invite, obviously, the more money you make. But I think this year, they sacrifice-Quality.quality over quantity. And I think that's really triggered a lot of fans frustration and disappointment.

The business part of it has just taken over everything. Yes, of course.

Questions have also surfaced about the ethics of the current leadership.

If you were to take a look at any other national organization for a pageant, you don't know with the owner. You're not supposed to. You're in the background.

Just weeks before the competition, Miss Universe co-owner, Anne Jocraja Tatep, and her associate, Asmel Sousa, going live on a since deleted TikTok, revealing their top 30 pics.

They were both looking at Anne's laptop, and Anne was checking out the photos, the head shots of the girls. Number one. Number two.

Number three. As a pageant fan, okay, when I saw that, I was horrified.

How could two top executives within the Mission Universe organization evaluate or indirectly choose their favorites. They don't even have any business doing that.

The duo also seeming to mock Ms. Lebanon, not a kooza, in a video that surfaced online, catching the eye of pageant bloggers, including a Miss Lebanon fan account.

How about Lebanon?

The incident causing Kousa to temporarily withdraw from the pageant, her country demanding an apology from the Miss Universe organization. An apology was issued, and the video removed from Instagram.

It's a fragile ecosystem, and it's a very trust-based ecosystem. You really have trust that they've got everybody's best interests at heart. And so if you do lose that trust, that's definitely going to be a problem for a lot of women.

Since 2023, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA have been run by Leela Loisley, known professionally as Leela Rose. But earlier this year...

The surprise from Miss USA, the young woman from Utah announcing that she is resigning her title. Miss Teen USA has now resigned just two days after Miss USA stepped from her role.

After experiencing what their mothers say was a toxic environment of harassment and bullying. 24-year-old Noelia Voit and 16-year-old Uma Sophia Srivastava had done what nobody else had ever done in the 70-year history of the pageant. My personal values no longer align with the direction the organization is going into.

That was earth-shattering within that realm. People voluntarily resigning and doing it in a very public way just shows how unhappy participants are. That is just very problematic for the organization overall.

In an eight-page resignation letter obtained by ABC News, Noelia said she was giving up her crown for the sake of her physical and mental health. And she blasted Miss USA and its President, Leila Rose, writing in part, There is a toxic work environment within the Miss USA organization that at best is poor management and at worst bullying and harassment.

At the time, the Miss USA organization told ABC News, We're committed to fostering a healthy, communicative, and supportive environment for all participants, state title holders, national title holders, and staff.

Unfortunately, when they had stepped down, a lot of people, I don't want to say, brushed it off. They're being dramatic. What did they expect? Noelia sided in mental health. I will always drive the point home that It was mental health issues that were caused by the current management.

Claudia Engelhardt, who competes in other pageants herself, worked closely with the title holders as the social media director for the Miss USA organization.

I couldn't think of a more perfect dream role. I was definitely on cloud nine.

How long did that feeling on cloud nine last?

Maybe two weeks. Okay. Not even. For me, Miss USA stands for women's empowerment. And when When I was there, it was very much not that under current leadership. What was it? The opposite. Belittling, berating, tearing people down, not supporting them.

Claudia says she witnessed Leila Rose micromanaging her staff and at one point, allegedly, taking over the official Miss USA Instagram account, blocking followers and posting as Noelia.

Even after I started, she was the one primarily posting, censoring, blocking.

So the CEO, the owner of Miss USA, you're saying, was posting on Instagram from her phone? Absolutely. And then commenting as the reigning.

Absolutely. There were three people that had access, myself and Noelia. I did not do it. Noelia didn't. The math is mathing on that one. It was her.

In texts reviewed by ABC News, Noelia confronted Leila Rose and the rest of the Miss USA team, writing, I saw that someone with access to the account seems to be commenting on my behalf. I'm not comfortable with this at all. The comments Noelia referenced included ones like, Thank you, Leila Rose, for making all of this happen. And she's been going over and beyond, Love our President. What was the problem with that?

Well, the problem, I think, was not correct representation. So there's nothing legally that she did wrong. However, that's when it comes down to this ethics and morals where it isn't right.

Abc News has exclusively learned that the current Miss USA, Alma Cooper, has retained an attorney in connection with her role as Miss USA. They declined to comment. Abc News reached out to Leila Rose for an interview and comment, but didn't hear back.

Miss Universe is Leila's boss. So the only person that has the power to fire her is Miss Universe. The people that have the ability to produce these pageants and direct these girls, we need to hold them more accountable. It's never the girl that is the problem more often than not. It's the people that are managing these young women in these positions.