Miss Pennsylvania will likely not be getting the Miss Congeniality award.
Sheena Monnin resigned from the Miss USA pageant Monday, one day after it aired on television, charging that the beauty competition is fixed and calling it “trashy” and “fraudulent.”
Miss USA organizers say the dark-haired beauty tossed in her crown because she opposed the organization’s decision to allow transgender contestants.
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“I have decided to resign my position as Miss Pennsylvania USA 2012,” she wrote on Facebook on Monday. “Effective immediately I have voluntarily, completely, and utterly removed myself from the Miss Universe Organization.”
“I can no longer be affiliated in any way with an organization I consider to be fraudulent, lacking in morals, inconsistent, and in many ways trashy,” she wrote.
The statement has been removed from Monnin’s profile, but not before it made noise around the world.
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A spokeswoman for the Miss Universe Organization said in an email to the Daily News that Monnin resigned after sending the group an email protesting its new policy on transgender entrants.
The organization sent the Daily News what it claims is an email from Monnin stating she “refuses to 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.”
“She has changed her story by publicly making false accusations claiming that the pageant was fixed,” the spokeswoman said. “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 organization altered its policy this year after a campaign to allow Miss Universe Canada hopeful Jenna Talackova to compete.
On Wednesday, the organization’s co-owner, Donald Trump, said he planned to sue Monnin over her remarks.
“She said some really strong things. When she’s using the word ‘fraud,’ that’s pretty strong, so we’re going to be suing her on that basis,” he said in an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show, and dismissed her claims as merely “loser’s remorse.”
Monnin also alleged on her Facebook page that she “witnessed another contestant who said she saw the list of the Top 5 BEFORE THE SHOW EVER STARTED.”
Monnin claims she knew the show was rigged when the top five was announced in the same order she had seen it before the show.
That post has also since been deleted.
Monnin, a University of Phoenix graduate, according to her Facebook page, has received loads of support on the social networking site.
“Thank you for standing up for your values,” one supporter wrote. “THAT is what makes a true Miss Universe.”
