Former Orange CEO Kristen Ivy said in an email to Orange board members that her and Orange founder Reggie Joiner’s “inappropriate relationship” was actually “clergy sexual abuse.”
On Wednesday (April 17), Orange announced that its founder and chief creative officer Reggie Joiner “voluntarily resigned” after admitting to “past inappropriate adult relationships”—including one with newly appointed CEO Kristen Ivy, who also resigned.
Ivy, who started at Orange in 2006, was instrumental in the development of Orange’s elementary school, middle school, and high school curriculums. She was announced as Orange’s new president and CEO in September 2023.
Orange describes itself as “a team of ministry leaders, educators, researchers, counselors, writers, editors, artists, musicians, and producers all committed to supporting churches and families as they nurture the faith and future of the next generation.”
In the announcement of Joiner’s and Ivy’s resignations, Orange characterized what happened between them as a “past inappropriate relationship.” The news was released just days before Orange’s annual conference in Atlanta.
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In an email obtained by The Roys Report, Ivy told Orange Board Chairman Joel Manby and Board Member Jennifer Barnes on the opening day of the conference (April 23) that what she first labeled as an “inappropriate relationship” was actually “clergy sexual abuse.”
Thanking the board members for “acting swiftly” when they were made aware of what took place, Ivy explained that “during the time of my original interview, I was prepared to protect Reggie at all cost because I was laboring under years of the belief that protecting Reggie was the only way to protect Orange.”
She continued, “I chose the words ‘inappropriate relationship’ when characterizing what I believed needed to be disclosed. My intent at the time was to maintain a humble posture and shoulder the burden of responsibility.”
But after seeking “professional counsel, experts in abuse, and [listening] to the stories of other survivors,” she said, “I now realize I am experiencing a high level activated trauma—not just from the past weeks, but also compounded trauma from many years of emotional and psychological abuse.”
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“Part of that realization has been to recognize that in my disclosure to Orange, I was still living within the mental frameworks I had been coerced to believe which led me to request an inappropriate level of responsibility for this situation,” she added.
