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Four contestants from the Mrs. America pageant are speaking out and accusing pageant CEO and co-founder David Marmel of making racist and offensive comments towards Black women.
The contestants, which include Kimberly Phillips, Crissy Timpson, Jeri Ward, and Brandy Palacios, who represent Mrs. Delaware, Mrs. New Jersey, Mrs. Ohio, and Mrs. Missouri, respectively, attended a press conference alongside attorney Gloria Allred yesterday (Oct. 15) alleging that Marmel told them “Black women need to stop having babies with four baby daddies and all black men are in jail because they need to stop selling drugs and killing each other.”
Mrs. Deleware went on to say he even placed his arm next to hers to “compare skin color.”
According to NBC News, Mrs. Deleware claims Marmel made the comments at a pageant event in Las Vegas on August 21.
Their allegations also include hearing Marmel using the N-word freely because “he knew the [Ebony] magazine owners and that they were the most racist people he ever met because they all used the term n—-r freely with each other.’” And because they called him “brother,” he thought it was okay to use the word too.
Timpson, who’s known as Mrs. New Jersey, says Marmel made “similar comments” to her days before. He allegedly told Timpson, “the a—hole who kneels needs to stop disrespecting my flag” after learning her husband serves in the U.S. Air Force.
Marmel spoke with NBC News after the ladies’ press conference, and called their statements “ugly” and “false.” He went on to say he doesn’t understand their “crusade” and thinks this might be “reverse racism.”
They say he made statements saying black women need to stop having so many babies with multiple fathers and that those men were drug dealers and in jail https://t.co/snApk3LAkj
— NBC New York (@NBCNewYork) October 16, 2018