A teenage Delaware beauty queen embroiled in a sex tape scandal resigned on Tuesday but continues to deny that she is the woman in the online video.
Melissa King, the 18-year-old Miss Delaware Teen USA from Bethany Beach, resigned her crown one day after a sex video featuring a girl that reportedly looks and sounds like King was posted on a website with the title "Miss Teen Delaware does porn." The girl in the 5-minute video answers questions about her participation in beauty pageants and is shown engaging in various sex acts.
"Absolutely not," she told
The News Journal, a Delaware-based newspaper, Monday. "It is not."
When asked if the woman in the video is just someone who closely resembles her, King said, "Um, I'd rather not be talking right now, but yeah."
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Dara Busch, a Miss Teen USA pageant spokeswoman, said the organization has received a letter of resignation from King's attorney, Gregory Hannigan. The pageant organization, a subsidiary of the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, will conduct an investigation into whether King was involved with the video, Busch said.
King is expected to issue a statement on Wednesday, according to Hannigan.
King was crowned Miss Delaware Teen USA in November. The runner-up, 17-year-old Hailey Lawler, will now step up to take King's place.
Pageant scandals are nothing new.
Ask Donald Trump, who owns the Miss Universe organization and who won a $5 million defamation suit against one of his own beauty queens.
In 2005, Sheena Benton was able to keep her title as Miss Delaware USA after it revealed that she had pleaded guilty in a DUI case in 2004.
In 1984, Vanessa Williams was forced to give up her Miss America crown after nude photos of her surfaced.
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