Beauty Pageant Turns Ugly

Leila Lopes didn't deserve to win, Laury Thilleman implies

(NEWSER) - Sounds like someone's a sore loser: Miss France Laury Thilleman snarked about Miss Angola Leila Lopes after Lopes was crowned Miss Universe , complaining to a French magazine about Lopes' fashion sense, among other things. The Washington Post offers a translation: "She was the only girl I didn’t know very well. We didn’t see her much; she was very discreet. She was often in jeans and not wearing makeup." More»

Leila Lopes wins the top honor

(NEWSER) - In a competition that was, for once, scandal-free, Miss Angola Leila Lopes was crowned Miss Universe last night in Brazil. Get a taste of the evening via the best lines, as reported by the AP :

• Lopes, 25, during the pageant's Q&A portion: Asked what she would change about her physical appearance, she replied, "Thank God I'm very satisfied with the way God created me and I wouldn't change a thing. I consider myself a woman endowed with inner beauty."
• Connie Chung, celebrity judge: "You have to keep in mind that these women are not objects just to be looked at. They're to be taken seriously."

Teenage Miss San Antonio fighting to keep title

(NEWSER) - A teenage beauty queen in Texas is suing to keep her crown, after she was stripped of her title for—in part—gaining weight. Domonique Ramirez, 17, won the local pageant in April, but was informed last month that the runner-up would take her place as Miss San Antonio—meaning the runner-up, not Ramirez, would advance to the Miss Texas pageant. For now, a judge has stopped the pageant promoters from formally stripping Ramirez’s title, ABC News reports. More»

Miss Universe is all business, no fun

(NEWSER) - Beauty pageants used to be “a hoot and a holler and a half,” but last night’s Miss Universe competition hailed their death. “Even as a gay man, I couldn't find joy or fun in last night's monument to wax figurines and Donald Trump,” writes Louis Bayard on Salon . It was essentially one long commercial, played out “efficiently and relentlessly and, yes, joylessly,” Bayard continues. “This is business. There's no room on the balance sheet for lust. Or camp. Or grunge. Or even beauty.” More»

Olivia O'Neil didn't 'maintain her image'

(NEWSER) - A New Zealand teen beauty queen was stripped of her title for the unimaginable offense of...dyeing her hair brown. Olivia O'Neil, whose hair had "white-blonde streaks" when she won the pageant, posted a picture on Facebook of her new darker 'do. Pageant organizer Barbara Osborne posted several comments, including "Please tell me that's a wig," reports the Wanganui Chronicle . When O'Neil said it wasn't—and added that if her hair wasn't "pageant-worthy," maybe pageants weren't for her—Osborne asked her to step down. More»