""I wish to express my profound confusion after discovering, via social media, that an impromptu jury has been formed to select the 30 finalists from among the 136 participating countries, without the presence of any of the real 8 members of the jury, including me,""
""To this day, no one knows who the selected 30 are, except one individual who holds the results. This same person is affiliated with a national organization of a participating country - which is a clear *conflict of interest*.""
""The Miss Universe Organization firmly clarifies that no impromptu jury has been created, and no external group has been authorized to evaluate delegates or select finalists, and that all competition evaluations continue to follow the established, transparent, and supervised MUO protocols,""
Two judges resigned from the Miss Universe pageant days before the event in Bangkok on November 21. Composer Omar Harfouch publicly alleged an impromptu jury secretly selected the 30 finalists without the official eight jurors and claimed a conflict of interest tied to one individual holding the results. The Miss Universe Organization denied the claims, asserted that established protocols remain in place, and barred Harfouch from using or associating with Miss Universe trademarks. A second judge, former professional soccer player Claude Makélélé, also left the judging panel the same day. A pageant director was fired earlier in the month for berating a contestant.
Read at Vulture
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