Any time a beauty pageant happens, like clockwork, some wild embarrassing moment comes out of it. Mostly, it’s the contestants who become the Internet’s No. 1 target because they have botched the question-and-answer session.
In 2015, host Steve Harvey made a huge mistake during the Miss Universe telecast when he accidentally named Miss Colombia the winner of the beauty pageant. Unfortunately for her, she was actually the first runner up, and Miss Philippines was the rightful owner of the crown.
Twitter was brutal in its response to Harvey, but s—t happens — especially when it comes to pageants. Here are six other times things got hella awkward at beauty pageants:
Miss Panama Giosue Cozzarelli was asked who Confucius was, and she would have been better off just admitting she had no idea.
“Confucius was one of the ones who invented confusion, and for that reason …. he’s one of the ancient Chinese, one of the Japanese of the ancient times.”
In 2008, Miss Monseñor Nouel Katherine Miguelina Escaño Cabrera was asked what historical figure she identified with and why. “The person I indentify with is Juan Pablo Duarte because thanks to him we discovered Latin America and if it weren’t for him, we still may not have discovered our country, our continent,” she said.
First of all, she didn’t even answer the question because she left out how she identifies with him. Secondly, Duarte is one of the forefathers of the Dominican Republic, but he has nothing to do with Latin America or whatever continent she was talking about.
Third of all, unclear who the “we” in this scenario is, considering that the people who were already in the “New World” didn’t need to discover it. Because they were already there, living life.
https://vine.co/v/OilIdUYpQ2A
In 2014, Miss Huila Laura Saavedra was backstage when she was asked questions while she hula hooped, which is awkward all on its own. But things got worse when she was asked who Nelson Mandela was.
“Nelson Mandela was who started the national beauty pageant,” she said about the late South African leader.
Obvs, people had fun at her expense.
Saavedra did release a video defending herself, saying that she misheard the question.
https://youtu.be/F-sSooqYisM?t=58s
In 2009, Miss Tegucigalpa Tatiana Mejía was asked what figure from Honduras’ history she identified with. “I identify with my mother, because she has strength of character and she knows how to react when there are problems,” she said.
This is actually really sweet.
At the 2009 Miss Venezuela pageant, Patricia Andrade couldn’t quite answer whether seeking permission or forgiveness was more difficult. And it’s just hard not to feel bad for her when she struggles to search for anything to say.
Miss Antioquia Verónica Velásquez was asked if a woman completes a man. It appears she was trying to say that people should be with whomever they want to be, which would have been a great response, but she instead ended up giving more than one answer.
https://twitter.com/JesusGutierrezG/status/400418064367235072