Miss Delaware Teen USA passed off her tiara to the pageant’s runner-up Tuesday after a sex video surfaced on a porn website, allegedly featuring the pageant queen.
Melissa King denies the woman in the video is her, despite allegations and her resignation. King said she knew about the video, but denied appearing in it. The site that posted it claimed the woman in the video was King, TMZ reported.
The crown will now go to pageant runner up Hailey Lawler. King was crowned in November of last year, four months before the video was shot.
The Miss Teen USA pageant spokeswoman, Dara Busch, released a statement yesterday confirming King’s resignation, the News Journal in Delaware reported. The letter was sent to the organization via King’s attorney.
The video features an interview between the young woman and an off-screen man, whose face is never shown. The woman looks and sounds much like the former pageant queen and is the same age as King, according to TMZ. She claimed she turned 18 in March, the same month as King’s birthday.
The video also contains the woman, allegedly King, explaining her favorite sex positions, when she lost her virginity, her previous relationship and why she chose to be involved with the sex tape.
“I thought it’d be fun, and it sounded like I needed the money, so I just did it,” the young woman in the video said.
When asked about her involvement in Miss Teen pageants, the woman is hesitant to answer at first, but eventually admitted that she has done beauty pageants before.
King’s Twitter feed on Tuesday was filled with the young woman’s response to followers’ encouragement. King also retweeted various followers’ words of encouragement, such as “If a good person does a bad thing, it does not make them bad.”