Fadil Berisha
Maria Montgomery, Miss Kentucky 2009, took Voigt and Srivastava to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in February for a sponsorship trip with Smile Train. She volunteered for the Miss USA organization and acted as their supervisor.
“It was a magical experience,” Montgomery said. “Smile Train took really great care of us and covered a lot of funds to have all three of us in a resort. Each day, we went out to different homes to visit patients who had cleft-lip surgery or were going to have surgery through Smile Train.”
“It’s a trip that Miss USA has taken every year for the past few years, and the girls have always said it’s one of their top experiences,” she added. “To see it firsthand was really special because both of these girls are bilingual. They were on the same level with these kids. We were there to help them, but these girls also had their lives touched just by being around them.”
Montgomery said she found it sad that the special memories from that trip were now erased from the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA Instagram pages.
“It’s obviously, on a personal level, very disrespectful,” Montgomery said. “But it also makes me feel like they want to hide that there were ever issues for girls to resign.”
“It’s very unfair for the differences these girls have made in other people’s lives,” she added. “The last thing we need to do is hide or silence either of them.”
In a statement sent to BI, Nicole Bell, Smile Train’s vice president of public relations, said the nonprofit extended “appreciation and gratitude to Noelia and Uma for their time and dedication to raising awareness about Smile Train.”
“For questions regarding what Miss USA decides to do with content on their various platforms, we defer to Miss USA,” Bell added.
Bringing up the past
The Miss USA Instagram page still has plenty of pictures of Savannah Gankiewicz, Voigt’s runner-up at Miss USA 2023, who took over the title after she resigned.
Gankiewicz made headlines after appearing on NewsNation the week before the Miss USA 2024 pageant, praising the organization. She said the allegations that Rose harassed Voigt and Srivastava were “completely false” and that it was Rose who had been “bullied.”
“Miss USA is an organization about empowerment, and that’s exactly what it does,” she added.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
Following the July 28 interview, Voigt posted a statement on her Instagram story saying she was “very disheartened to see a video today of someone completely invalidating my and UmaSofia’s experiences.”
“UmaSofia and I are unable to speak on our experiences at all, which is disappointing and difficult to deal with when false narratives are being created from all different directions,” she added. “If the intention is to empower women, why the need to invalidate their feelings and experiences and question the character of those who are now formerly part of the organization, who have stepped away and lost their dream or their career?”
Srivastava also posted a statement on her Instagram story, saying she would “not stand for someone impugning my or Noelia’s character.”
“Claiming that Noelia and I were not victims, but rather perpetrators of anything remotely close to ‘bullying,’ in the words of the current representative, is unfortunate, but reaffirms that my choice to distance myself from this organization was the right one,” she added.
Gankiewicz’s mother, Yvienne Peterson, added to the drama. In screenshots reviewed by BI, Peterson sent pageant fans direct messages about Voigt, including one that called her a “rude bitch” and “little troll.” She also left public comments on Miss USA fan pages attacking people who supported Voigt and Srivastava, claiming her daughter was always meant to win Miss USA.
“What I am is a bitch and I proudly own it,” she wrote in one on July 30. “I have to head out and continue to build my empire.”
Peterson and Gankiewicz did not respond to a request for comment on this story. However, in an interview with BI the day after her NewsNation appearance, Gankiewicz said she supported Voigt and Srivastava and “everything they went through.”
“I am sorry that that is what they experienced, but now it’s time to just empower an organization that they believed in,” she added. “So it’s time to spread love and show the new delegates and new winners that they, too, can keep going for this dream.”