Former pageant exec Brent Adams is speaking out about why he decided to release the emails.
Former Miss America pageant executive Brent Adams, who helped blow the whistle on profane and sexist emails sent by contest leaders, now says he wishes he had come forward a long time ago.
"I wish I had said something sooner," Adams told Inside Edition on Thursday.
Some of the leaked emails concerned 2013 Miss America Mallory Hagan. "OMG she is huge ... and gross," wrote CEO Sam Haskell, who has since stepped down.
A lead writer for the telecast shot back, "Mallory's preparing for her new career -- as a blimp in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade."
Email exchanges between pageant big-wigs were released last week by the Huffington Post. They were laden with expletives and crude terms for a woman's genitalia.
Adams is one of two whistleblowers who made the correspondence public. He also dated Hagan.
"Sam is over here maligning her and passing her photo around to multiple people in different email chains, commenting how gross she looked, in his opinion," Adams said. "I thought she looked great."
The photograph was of Hagan wearing her pageant bikini, several months after being crowned.
Another target was 1998 winner Kate Shindle, who criticized Haskell's $500,000 annual salary in her memoirs.
Responding to an email mourning the death of former winner-turned-actress Mary Ann Mobley, Haskell wrote "It should have been Kate Shindle."
Adams said he found the working environment so toxic he quit.
"I left because I couldn't stand to work for him any more. I felt it would be compromising my own integrity," he said.
Asked why he was coming forward now, Adams replied, "I'm just trying to do the right thing."
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