According to a Jan 17 TMZ report, Miss America 2004 Ericka Dunlap is demanding an apology from the Miss America organization for alleged racism by a producer at the 2013 Miss America pageant.
The former beauty queen and first black woman to win Miss Floriada, alleges that a racist producer moved her from a prime seat during the competition last weekend because she is black.
“I was sitting there on the aisle, and during the first commercial break during top 15 announcement, a producer came up to me and said, 'Get out of that seat. I need the seat. I don’t give a f**k who you are. Get out of the f**king seat,” she tells TMZ. “I was spoken to as if I didn't matter. If I were any other Miss America, I would have never been spoken to like that. But I'm the only black one who comes back,” Dunlap tells the publication.
The former beauty queen says that an assistant producer eventually helped the first producer to physically remove her from her seat, concluding, “I was mortified.”
A rep for the Miss America organization tells TMZ that Dunlap's story has no merit. “During the night of the telecast, Ericka was unhappy with her seat, and she chose to move to a camera blocked seat that was reserved for the parents of our contestants,” says the rep, adding, “At the top of the show, the stage manager asked her to move to seat the contestant's parents, and she refused to move. She subsequently was offered a better seat, however she refused it. It was strictly a television production issue.”
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