Ashleigh Blake wanted to be Miss USA.
Well – not just Miss USA. Ashleigh had a plan. Miss USA was to be a stepping stone to making it big in Hollywood. Not just regular big, either – Angelina Jolie big. She wanted to be on Glee. She wanted to sing, dance, model and act and she wanted everyone to know her name (Fame!).
Ashleigh had her resume on a casting networking site called GotCast with her amateur modelling pics. And one day, she got a message from a recruitment associate for Miss California USA, asking if she wanted to schedule a meeting.
Of course she wanted to. Which aspiring Hollywood star would say no to a pageant? Yeah, the beauty pageant industry gets a bad rap. Any industry that promotes dressing three-year-olds like Vegas showgirls is, understandably, going to get slammed for it.
But there is no denying that winning a beauty pageant will guarantee you fame, fortune and All That Jazz. If successful in the Miss California pageant, Ashleigh could potentially go on to the Miss USA pageant; and from there, the Miss Universe pageant.
Unfortunately, Ashleigh didn’t make it to any of those levels. Because she wouldn’t agree to give sexual favours in return for guaranteed progress through the rounds of the pageant world.
Ashleigh is now suing the Miss Universe Organisation (owned by Donald Trump, the Organisation covers the state pageants, Miss USA and Miss Universe) over the recruitment associate for Miss California who originally contacted her.
The basis of the case is the allegation that the agent asked Ashleigh for a blow job, in order to progress her modelling career.
The name of the recruitment associate was Domingo Rodriguez. He invited Ashleigh, and a bunch of other pageant hopefuls, to an interview session. In the interview, Rodriguez told Ashleigh that he would be able to help her find sponsors to pay the pageant’s non-refundable deposit fee of $895. He also offered to help her to “the next level”, sending her emails and telling her to contact him on his mobile.