Amy Polumbo, Miss New Jersey, was on the Today show on Monday in an attempt to continue to put pressure on whoever is blackmailing her. She revealed that the blackmailer(s) call themselves “The Committee to Save Miss America.” It sounds nicely patriotic too. Of course this “Committee” could be made up of just one crazy person alone in their basement.

Whoever these people are, they’ve already sent another batch of pictures to Miss New Jersey organizers. They claim to have 24 more sets ready to go, though it’s unclear if they mean sets of new pictures, or 24 more sets of the same pictures that they’ll distribute to new people. Apparently, it’s not the pictures themselves that are so terrible, it’s the captions the “Committee” has put on the photos. Sounds like the work of Perez Hilton to me. I tease, I tease. When asked to explain the photos, Miss New Jersey was a little vague.

“A 22-year-old senior at Wagner College in Staten Island, Polumbo says the photos were lifted from her private Facebook Web page – and are less revealing than the red bikini she wore in the Miss New Jersey competition. She said captions were added to make them seem lewd.

“I am not doing anything illegal” in the pictures, Polumbo said on the “Today” show. “They’re not bad. I’m a normal college girl.”

Polumbo said it never occurred to her that someone could try to use the images to derail her Miss America bid – and did not rule out the possibility another contestant was behind this.

“Whoever this is, I think they’re a very miserable person and I really feel bad for them,” she said.

Polumbo had difficulty explaining to NBC’s Matt Lauer how she could be blackmailed with photos that don’t show her drinking, taking drugs or showing skin.

“It’s still being investigated,” she said.

[From the Daily News]

The world has to wonder, how exactly can you be blackmailed by photographs that don’t contain nudity, drinking, or drugs? Even with inappropriate things added, won’t most people able to say, hey the pictures isn’t the problem, it’s these nutcases that are sending them out? Maybe I’m giving to much credit here. Miss New Jersey told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that prior to the blackmailing, her mother saw the pictures and “was mad at me for maybe 10 minutes. She said, maybe you might want to remove them because someone will look at them a different way.”

Is anyone else noticing some shades of “Miss Congeniality” here? I say get Sandra Bullock and a big poofy dress and it’ll all be okay. Well, if the movie had any truth to it. My best friend in second grade was Playboy’s Miss May last year. I’m sure I’ve got some photos of her somewhere that I can use for money. There’s the one with us holding the class hamster… the one with us reciting a poem in front of the class… ohh, the one with her holding her pet rabbit! Jackpot!