Miss America: Civil War

The United States of Miss America are falling the fuuuuuuuuuuck apart, according to reports.

The national organization that heads up the Miss America beauty pageant has terminated the contracts of four states and threatened more than a dozen others with probation. For why? Sedition. The Associated Press is calling it a reVOLT!!, while Deadline has dubbed it a reBELLION!! And as for me? A-ha! I’m just happy for a reDISTRACTION!! from thinking about how I’m gonna get hormones after the apocalypse.

Basically, here’s the deal: A buncha state officials hate how former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson and Regina Hopper are running the Miss America Organization. (Carlson and Hopper took over as Chairwoman and CEO, respectively, last January.) Perhaps unrelated though no doubt adding to their discontent, Miss America 2018 Cara Mund accused Carlson, a former Miss America herself, of bullying her. A handful of other Miss Americae have come forward to corroborrate Mund’s claims that Carlson fucking sucks, Deadline notes.

In retaliation, the Miss America Organization’s national leadership has terminated Georgia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and an unknown fourth state’s licenses, forcing those now defunct state organizations to hand over all the assets in their bank accounts, including scholarship money. These four states can request an appeal, after they replace their current leadership that spoke out against Carlson and Hopper. An additional fifteen states have been threatened with probation, and—holy shit—must explain “in writing” their actions over the past year.

When the AP asked the Miss America Organization to explain their own actions, they declined. “The process regarding Miss America state licensees is confidential,” they said in a statement.