Documentary exposes dark side of Miss USA, unleashes evidence in favor of former MU 2022

The documentary How to Fix a Pageant produced by The New York Times surprised beauty fans by showing the dark side in the Miss America pageant. After decades of declining prestige and a series of scandals that have caused the competition to be in crisis.

How to fix a pageant is longer than 48 minutes, exploring the notoriety of the Miss USA pageant in recent years. The reason is that in recent years, the long-standing and prestigious contest - Miss USA - has been judged more and more slippery because of scandals.

For example, in 2022, Miss USA organizers were accused of favoring beauty R'Bonney Gabriel after she was crowned.

In response to these allegations, the Miss USA organizers launched an investigation. In a statement issued on July 1, 2023, the organisers said: "Following a thorough and extensive investigation, we find that the allegations of cheating about the 'Miss USA' 2022 pageant are false.

A big thank you to Crystle Stewart and the entire Miss Brand staff for their consistent and transparent cooperation throughout the entire investigation process. Their willingness to provide and support fully during that challenging time is testament to their professionalism and integrity."

However, the documentary How to fix a pageant has shown that the incident still has many hidden corners, spoken by insiders themselves, making the audience even more disgruntled.

In this film, Grace Lange, representing the state of Delaware, and Faith Porter, representing the District of Columbia at the Miss USA 2022 pageant, recounted signs that R'Bonney Gabriel, the representative of Texas, was favored by the organizers.

They said R'Bonney Gabriel was the only contestant from that year's competition to go to a spa and shoot an ad for sponsor NIZUC, a beauty spa in Cancun, Mexico.

After R'bonney was crowned for 5 days, Crystle Stewart (former national director of the pageant) was suspended by the Miss Universe organization and investigated.

Miss USA 2022 judge Keylee Sanders said in the film that pageant organizers sent messages to the judges asking them to remain silent, not revealing anything to investigators.

The film also shows that Miss Academy, the beauty academy founded by Crystle Stewart, is the sponsor of Miss USA 2022, and also accepts training for contestants.

Of the 15 contestants who trained at Crystle Stewart's facility, 8 made it into the top 16, 7 made the top 12, 3 made the top 5, and both contestants in the top 2 were students of this center.

Many journalists came to interview the directors of the Miss USA state pageant. They said they were pressured to open a branch of Miss Academy in their state, or to send strong contestants to train at the center.

Another anomaly exposed by How to fix a pageant is that over the years, the auditing unit Ernst & Young has been invited to score at the Miss USA final. But in 2022 alone, the competition did not announce an audit unit.

In the documentary, when a reporter interviewed Crystle Stewart, she said she couldn't remember the name of the audit firm, then said she had hired a local audit firm and asked permission to send the names back after the interview.

However, Keylee Sanders, a judge on Miss USA 2022, insisted she only saw Miss USA staff collecting scores from each judge without seeing an audit representative.

Another shocking point revealed in How to fix a pageant is the scandal of Max Sebrechts (husband of Crystle Stewart, who was also the Vice President of Miss USA).

Taylor Hale — Michigan's state representative at Miss USA 2021 — accused Max Sebrechts of harassing her. Taylor Hale said she asked Max to bring a heavy object into the room, but he deliberately lingered and tried to hug and kiss her.

Taylor also published solicitation messages sent to her by Crystle Stewart's husband. Taylor then tried to contact Paula Shugart, the pageant's president, and Miss Universe organizers to report the incident but received no response.

The dark sides of the Miss USA pageant exposed in the film angered the public. Many people believe that is the reason why Miss USA no longer retains its prestige and is facing serious deterioration.

After officially taking over the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants, transgender billionaire Anne Jakrakutatip has undertaken many bold and tough reforms to restore the prestige of the pageant.

However, many viewers said that the Thai businesswoman will still face many difficulties in regaining her reputation for a beauty pageant with too many scandals like Miss USA.

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