Miss Delaware Amanda Longacre has filed a $3 million lawsuit against the Delaware pageant officials and Miss America after she was stripped of her crown for being too old.
In late June, Longacre, 24, was stripped of her Miss Delaware title after officials realized that she would turn 25 before the end of the year, which is against official pageant rules.
Longacre lost her title and any contracted appearances, and will not be able to compete for the title of Miss America. And officials crowned runner-up Brittany Lewis the new Miss Delaware. Longacre did get to keep her scholarship prize, but that didn’t ease the sting.
“I am so, like, really upset because I just found out Tuesday that I was stripped of my crown over an age clause that clearly the board of my state didn’t even know about. So I am left here wondering why I was put in this position to begin with,” Longacre told Today in June.
At the time of her dismissal, Longacre announced she was looking into her legal options because she was not in error. Longacre claims that she provided the Miss America organization with her birth certificate, and they were fully aware of her birthdate when they informed her she was eligible to compete.
In the suit filed Tuesday, July 15, Longacre states that she would like to be reinstated as Miss Delaware, and therefore be invited to compete for the title of Miss America. In addition, the suit seeks $500, 000 in damages, as Longacre claims being stripped of her crown lost her potential jobs and that competing in the competition itself cost her over $4,000 in makeup, coaching and work missed.
According to Longacre, she was not the only contestant later deemed ineligible who competed for the Miss Delaware crown. The suit is also seeking $2.5 million in damages for fellow contestants recruited by the Miss America organization and then informed they were too old to compete, suggesting they were used to inflate participation.
Miss America Organization President Sharon Pearce has denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the case, saying, “It is a lawsuit without merit and we will defend it vigorously.”
Miss America officials claim that they are not at fault because Longacre signed a contract stating she would not turn 25 before Dec. 31, 2014. However, Longacre claims that she signed a contract that clearly stated her birthday and was approved by pageant officials.
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Originally, the Miss America Organization blamed the Delaware pageant officials, stating, “When the contract arrived in the national office and her birth date arrived we realized a mistake had been made on behalf of the Delaware pageant.”
State pageant officials have not yet responded to the lawsuit or released any statement, but Miss America Organization said that, despite the legal dispute, Longacre would still receive her $9,000 scholarship.
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