Bess Myerson: Miss America on Trial | 212

Scamfluencers

Audible

Society & Culture

4.1 • 7.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2026

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bess Myerson rose to fame as the first - and still only - Jewish Miss America, antisemitism on the pageant circuit. She parlayed this visibility into a successful television career, then made the leap into New York City politics in the 1970s. But in the 1980s, her carefully built reputation began to unravel in a sensational scandal involving her married boyfriend, his divorce judge, and allegations of bribery. The saga was splashed across headlines as the “Bess Mess” – and threatened to eclipse her trailblazing legacy.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of scam influencers ad-free right now.
0:05.3	Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.
0:08.3	A note for our listeners, this episode describes incidents of domestic violence.
0:12.6	Listen with care.
0:20.3	Sarah, have you ever entered a beauty contest by chance?
0:24.5	Like, were you ever competing to be Little Miss Ottawa?
0:27.4	Oh, of course not.
0:28.9	I was a weird-looking kid.
0:32.1	No, no, no, no.
0:33.4	And no, no.
0:34.6	There was no universe where that would have happened in my life.
0:37.1	Why?
0:37.7	Would you?
0:38.4	No, I mean, my dad was like one of those very particular male feminists in the 90s.
0:45.2	So it was very important that I'd be smart above being pretty.
0:49.0	So I would never be entered in a contest, like rooted in my cuteness.
0:53.5	I also was weird looking.
0:55.8	But look at you now.
0:57.2	Smart.
0:57.7	Look at us.
0:58.4	Beautiful.
0:59.2	Aw.
	...

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