Large Brother season 24 winner Taylor Hale got here ahead with allegations that former Miss USA vice chairman Max Sebrechts sexually harassed her the morning after the November 2021 pageant.
“What I’m actually involved about are deeper points that occurred with the present possession of Miss USA,” Hale, 27, mentioned on the Thursday, October 27, episode of the “Actuality Steve” podcast. “I don’t care about allegations of favoritism. I care about allegations of sexual harassment.”
She revealed, “That is the primary time I’m occurring the report saying this.”
Hale had been Miss Michigan USA that yr however didn’t make it to the Prime 16 at Miss USA. “[Sebrechts] DMs me on Instagram and says, ‘You probably did a great job, so pleased with you,’” Hale recalled. “He invitations me to the presidential suite. I decline.”
She later bumped into him in her lodge foyer whereas carrying her “huge and heavy” state costume. Hale mentioned Sebrechts, 42, provided to assist carry the garment to her room, which she accepted.
“There was a protocol in place the place in case you had been being escorted to your room, the one who was escorting you’ll cease on the elevator financial institution and watch you go down the hallway to your room,” she defined. “He didn’t cease on the elevator financial institution, he continued to enter the room. He positioned the costume within the room within the entry hall, after which he walked all the best way in and proceeded to take a seat down, have a dialog with me. None of this felt actually threatening, but it surely was undoubtedly uncomfortable. Like, he shouldn’t have been lingering.”
Hale alleged that Sebrechts’ inappropriate habits continued to cross the road additional. “Then when he stood up he gave me some very sexually, intimate kinds of hugs. Like, they had been very intimate, fairly sexual,” she mentioned. “He’s whispering in my ear telling me you already know, I’m so lovely, so beautiful. He kisses the nook of my mouth making an attempt to play it off prefer it’s my cheek and I simply — I’m simply frozen. I’m not doing something however he’s clearly ready for me to make the subsequent transfer. He does this twice after which lastly I get him to go away the room.”
Sebrechts, who married former Miss USA Crystle Stewart in 2014, is now not with the group. Hale mentioned she didn’t say something earlier on account of her standing with Miss USA and Sebrechts’ firing.
“So in the end, as of early January … he was lastly faraway from the group. I used to be nonetheless a title holder of the group. I used to be nonetheless Miss Michigan USA till Might of that yr. So I didn’t wish to blow this up. I didn’t wish to make the most important deal out of it, however I used to be made conscious that there could have been had been different girls, whether or not they had been from my yr or from different years … What’s extra necessary to me is that he’s handled. What’s extra necessary to me is that these allegations are taken significantly. Frankly, I don’t care about problems with pending potential rigging of a pageant when you have got somebody who has entry to younger girls, whether or not they be Miss [USA] contestants or [Miss Teen USA] contestants.”
Taylor Hale Sonja Flemming/CBS
She added that different girls has related experiences with the manager. “All of it felt too practiced and cozy. …I didn’t wish to imagine it however I knew that there could be extra. And there are extra,” Hale mentioned.
A number of girls anonymously got here ahead earlier this month with related accusations, many giving screenshots of inappropriate messages allegedly despatched by Sebrechts to the New York Put up.
Miss Universe, the dad or mum group of Miss USA, advised The Put up that the group was “made conscious of the allegations in opposition to Max Sebrechts concerning his habits in direction of 2021 Miss USA contestants” in December.
“Upon studying this, Miss Universe Group carried out a evaluate, which resulted in Max being utterly faraway from any affiliation with the Miss USA group in January 2022,” the rep added. “5 months after he had been eliminated, in June 2022, Miss Universe Group was made conscious that Max had an extramarital relationship in 2018, during which graphic textual content messages and pictures had been exchanged, two years earlier than his spouse, Crystle Stewart, was awarded the Miss USA license.”
