There is absolutely nothing attractive about former Miss Venezuela Alicia Machado’s opinion of Asians

Alicia Machado making a face to illustrate her faulty point about Asians. Screen shot: Facebook

It has been an unseemly Miss Universe year. As if what’s happening in Thailand isn’t enough, Miss Universe 1996, Alicia Machado, traded her tiara for a bad thought that really misfired. In a reel on what was reportedly her Facebook account, the Venezuelan’s opinion emerged while she was commenting on a viral incident involving Miss Universe Thailand director Nawat Itsaragrisil and Miss Mexico Fátima Bosch. She described Mr Itsarahrisil in Spanish as “that despicable Chinese”. Yes, he is an ethnic Chinese, but singling his race for condemnation is itself despicable. Even if Ms Machado was reacting to behavior she found objectionable, invoking Mr Itsaragrisil’s ethnicity as the defining insult was flashing the race card trick, where identity becomes the weapon. If she needed a stereotype to explain a person, she already stopped paying attention.

But that was not enough for the beauty queen. Someone tried to correct her wild generalisation, but she was having none of it, saying, “everyone with slanted eyes”—no matter if they are Chinese, Thai, or Korean—are all “Chinese” to her oculars, the blank windows to a vacant house. As she said that, she tugged at the corners of her eyes to illustrate her point and the depth of her prejudice. And she went on: “I don’t give a dick about anyone like that.” This was not a teen bungle; this was grown-up rant. There is no other way to see this other than appallingly racist and derogatory. In one fell swoop, Ms Machado, who now lives in the U.S. and likely operated from there, dismissed the world’s most populous continent, home to more than 4.7 billion people, spanning dozens of cultures, languages, and history (China’s alone is 5,000 years of recorded past). Should we thank her for making her bigotry a public service, sparing us all the inconvenience of a meet-and-greet?

Alicia Machado at the Miss Universe Latina in July. Photo: machadoofficial/Instagram

And then there was the unprovoked attack on Thailand. She called it a “shitty country”, even describing Phuket as “extremely polluted” and “disgusting”. It is alarming that she could not see this as egregiously disrespectful, especially coming from someone who once held a title meant to symbolise global unity and cultural appreciation. These weren’t offhand travel complaints—they were public, racial insults aimed at a nation that has long been a cornerstone of the Miss Universe franchise. Thailand has hosted the pageant multiple times, invested heavily in its production, and cultivated a passionate fan base. To dismiss it so crudely is to spit on the very stage that once crowned her. Ironically, she owed her global platform to the very system she just insulted. Thailand, like Venezuela, has built a national identity around pageantry. There is no reason to punch down on a country that has given significantly to the pageant world.

As Miss Universe in 1996, Ms Machado has long been vocal about her negative experiences with Donald Trump during her reign. She accused Mr Trump of publicly humiliating her over her weight gain, calling her names like “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping,” which she said were both fat-shaming and xenophobic. Her story became a major talking point during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when Hillary Clinton cited the Miss Venezuela as an example of Trump’s alleged mistreatment of women and minorities. Yet, now she’s poised to mock Asian facial features and misidentify a Thai man as Chinese. Ms Machado shows that public figures can be both victims and perpetrators of discrimination. As we often see, the crown barely covers the head, it does not fill it.

Donald Trump and Alicia Machado during a 1997 interview on CBS News. Screen shot: cbsnews/YouTube

In fact, what Ms Machado said about Asians is reminiscent of what JD Vance said about Chinese people. In April 2025, Mr Vance said on Fox News that the U.S. borrows “money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.” This wasn’t just a clumsy word choice, it was a racialised economic caricature, reducing 1.4 billion people to a monolithic, impoverished labour force. Ms Machado’s livestream tirade, was similarly steeped in racial tagging and national contempt, compacting the whole of Asia into a monolithic block. While Mr Vance used economic framing, Machado used aesthetic disgust. Both are acts of exclusion, targeting Asian identity as inferior or threatening. Ethnicity was used to express disdain. We see both as a cross-domain pattern of racial contempt pretending to be commentary.

What’s striking is how Machado’s public persona has shifted from aspirational icon to combative commentator. Her livestream statements suggest a troubling comfort with racial biases and spectacle-driven outrage—traits that feel more aligned with reality TV than with the ideals of global representation. Wielding her legacy like a wrecking ball (sorry, Miley Cyrus), the queen has become the jester: she’s cashing in on her multicultural legacy only to insult the values that crowned her. When Miss Mexico said, “No one can shit out voice”, did she mean this? Alicia Machado’s livestream wasn’t just a personal misstep, it was a public unraveling of the pageant’s multicultural pretense. Her remarks about Asian features and Thailand weren’t just offensive; they were aggression, delivered with the smugness of someone who believes her crown grants her cultural veto power.