Culture

ICYMI: Miss Puerto Rico Suspended After Anti-Muslim Rant on Twitter

Lead Photo: Edward Lea/The Press of Atlantic City via AP
Edward Lea/The Press of Atlantic City via AP
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Steve Harvey accidentally naming the wrong winner may be what most people will remember about the pageant world in 2015, but before Miss Colombia had the crown literally taken from her head at the 2015 Miss Universe pageant, there was already drama brewing. On Thursday, Miss Puerto Rico Destiny Velez fired off a series of bigoted tweets after Michael Moore posted a picture of himself outside of Trump Tower with a sign that read, “We are all Muslim,” according to the Huffington Post.

Tweeting directly at Moore, Velez sided with Trump and said that Muslims have only terrorized the United States.

In response to her grossly incorrect and insensitive comments, Velez was suspended from the Miss Puerto Rico organization. “The Miss Puerto Rico Organization feels that her words do no represent the integrity and esteem of our program, nor that of our board members, our sponsors and partners, or the National Organization,” the group said in a press release. “Miss Velez’s actions were in contradiction to the organization, and there as a consequence of her actions, she has been suspended indefinitely.”

She has since deleted her social media accounts.

Today, Michael Moore responded to the incident in a Facebook video, taking what seemed to be a sympathetic stance at first, which quickly veered into light sarcasm (“Maybe you can give her another title or crown from a place where you can say those things and get a lot of support for it,” he said, suggesting Mississippi as a candidate.):

My video reaction this morning to Miss Puerto Rico being suspended for making anti-Muslim remarks aimed at me on Twitter because I held a sign in front of Trump Tower that read “We Are All Muslim”. CNN story: http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/20/us/miss-puerto-rico-suspended/index.html

Posted by Michael Moore on Monday, December 21, 2015

Meanwhile, through the same medium that she used to express her hateful comments, people denounced her actions through #nonosrepresentas.