Miss Dominican Republic Calls Out Miss Global For Cheating During Competition

Those of us who have been around pageants have either watched or participated in a pageant where we thought the results were skeptical. However, the 2020 Miss Global pageant takes that suspicion to a whole other level! The depth of corruption was beyond belief over the weekend.

During Saturday’s pageant, held in Oaxaca, Mexico, viewers and contestants astonished by a certain sponsor’s push for Miss Mexico Global, Palmira Ruiz, to win the crown. Apparently, Miss Mexico was treated differently than the other 56 competitors. Speaking with local media following the debacle Miss Dominican Republic 2019, LeslieAnn Padilla said Palmira was treated better than the other competitors throughout the pageant. She claimed, “Mexico was always late to rehearsals and was always absent.” According to her, during the final show all the other contestants were crammed in a small area with no heat and were freezing changing in and out of their competition wear while Miss Mexico was comfortable with her two of her own heated rooms.

LesilieAnn says only her, Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, Cuba, and Venezuela spoke Spanish. This meant she could understand a lot of what was going on behind the scenes.

During a conversation with Pageants & Prosecco, she told us she overheard a man backstage with Van Pham the CEO and Founder of Miss Global. For safety reasons she chose not to disclose his name or position with the organization. She told Us it was this guy who told Van Pham, if Miss Mexico did not win, they would pull the plug on the entire televised show. LeslieAnn felt the need to call out the man for the unfairness and was threatened if she did not remain quiet!

This did not stop Miss Columbia Global, Jesenia Orozco from speaking out on stage during the pageant, “It’s fraud! There is a lot of corruption in Mexico and it’s unfair.” In order to attempt to silence her, staff played music over her protests. In videos from that night you can hear Jesenia saying, “It is disrespectful to all the women that worked hard to be here.” She went on to say the pageant was full of corruption and fraud, and the Miss Global Mexico representatives were giving Latinos a bad name.

However, it is important to know she and the other contestants don’t see the Miss Global organization as the ones to blame, “it should be on Miss Global Mexico.”

So, who was behind the scheme to crown Mexico as Miss Global? According to those close to the competition, it was one of the host country’s sponsor, Ramiro Gutierrez, who pressured the Miss Global organization to crown Miss Mexico the title; going so far as to threaten to cancel the entire broadcast if she was not selected. When the Miss Global Organization refused to meet his demands, Gutierrez carried out his threat and pulled the plug during the live televised broadcast, ending the pageant without a winner being crowned and before onstage questions began.

In the days following, Van Pham issued a public statement on behalf of the Miss Global Organization denouncing this behavior. He asserted that, while Guiterrez was one of the country’s sponsor, he is not affiliated with Miss Global. He expressed his support of Miss Columbia’s public protest onstage and said Guiterrez needed “to uphold the rules and procedures that Miss Global has always honored.” The public statement ended with the announcement of the winner, Karolína Kokešová, Miss Czech Republic (who reportedly had the highest score at the time of the interruption) and the organization’s commitment to maintain the integrity of their pageants in the future.

You can see his full statement here:

What do you think about the events and public outrage at Miss Global? Tell your thoughts below…