Remember the time when Steve Harvey called out the wrong Miss Universe and caused quite a stir on the internet? Yep, crazy times! Well, similarly, recently a famous pageant show held in Malaysia, Miss Tourism World, had called out the wrong finalists and had to re-do the finalist round.
According to Daily Mail, the showrunners claimed to have had experienced some technical issues, thus they had to recall all five of the top finalists. Obviously, this didn’t sit well with the contestants as one of them voiced out against the matter.
Miss Great Britain, Saffron Hart, expressed her disgust after she was chosen as one of the finalists on the show but due to the recall, she was replaced by Miss Malaysia. Jeng jeng jeng…
Source: Daily Mail
“I’m no sore loser. I’m just disgusted that we were all treated so appallingly. This has put me off beauty pageants for life,” she said.
According to Hart, she and her parents had spent 7,000 GBP (approx. RM38,300) and had taken three weeks off work to attend the contest at the Melaka beach resort. That’s a lot of money, no wonder she’s dissatisfied with the treatment!
Source: Daily Mail
Hart, 27, who hails from Hull, East Yorkshire, England added that she was so in shock that she couldn’t believe this absurdity was happening. According to her, the other girls were even more outraged than she was; she claimed everyone was very embarrassed and some were even crying. Poor thing!
However, she wasn’t the only one who got replaced. A total of three finalists, herself as well as Miss Venezuela and Miss Panama, did not make it to the final rebooted round.
Miss Venezuela, Giorgiana Rosas, who was also removed from the finalists’ line-up, said that she burst into tears instantaneously when the finalist round had to be rebooted.
Source: Daily Mail
“I felt publicly humiliated because beauty pageants are part of our national culture and this left my whole family in floods of tears,” said the 18-year-old calling the incident ridiculous and unfair.
The contestants weren’t the only ones that had expressed their disappointment with the whole episode, as other people had also spoken out against the matter.
“I’ve been shocked, disgusted, and in utter disbelief. How can they treat Miss Great Britain like this?” said Louis, Hart’s mum.
Even the organiser’s staff had expressed their disgust at the lack of professionalism of the team and sympathised with the contestants.
Nevertheless, the show still went on but with only 18 contestants who went back on stage, including Hart. Other contestants had refused to go back on stage. In the end, Miss Colombia was crowned Miss Tourism World.
After the show, though, things were made even worse when the organisation had neither acknowledged nor apologised to the contestants after the incident.
“The Miss Tourism World team didn’t even acknowledge us girls afterwards, never mind apologies. And I flew home with one of them two days later,” Hart said.
Nonetheless, a statement was released by the team of Miss Tourism World on 3 February 2018 expressing their regret for any confusion caused by a computer error. They had stated that there was a technical glitch involving one of the judges’ scores; hence the scores were not recorded correctly in the system.
“The fault was detected by the adjudicators and an immediate manual check was carried out by the adjudicators and judges to ensure that the results were accurately reflected. This led to the recount of the earlier top 5 winners. Notwithstanding that there was a small disruption during the show, we still believe that it is important to provide correct and fair results as decided by the panel of judges of the evening,” the statement further explained.
What an unfortunate incident! We express our sympathy to the girls affected and congratulate Miss Colombia on her win. Let us know what you think about this incident in the comments!
Also read: First the Nasi Lemak Dress, Now Miss Universe Indonesia Reveals ‘Orang Utan’ Costume!
