With allegations of rigging, judges resigning, and the very public scolding that led to a walkout among contestants, Miss Universe 2025 pageant appears to be one of the most scandal-ridden in recent history, if not the most explosive by far

Sixteen of the contestants in a publicity shot for the cultural show, Siam Niramit. Photo: missuniverse2025org/Instagram

Some say that there is no beauty without the beast. It feels like Miss Universe 2025, unfolding now in Thailand, has taken that phrase as its unofficial theme. Some truly beastly behaviours were seen before the one beauty is finally crowned. The final judgment will be staged tomorrow evening, culminating in a season of pre-event controversies, spanning executive misconduct, alleged integrity breaches in the judging process, and foundational corporate instability. The latest MU edition represents the most complex, systemic, and damaging failure in the organization’s recent history. Previous incidents were just bad apples; 2025 was a five-alarm inferno in a kitchen built on gas leaks, ego, and expired ideals, simultaneously.

The current fiasco involved the resignation of a trio of judges just days before the final competition, prompted by accusations of a lack of transparency and a potentially “rigged” selection process. Franco-Lebanese musician and composer Omar Harfouch publicly resigned from the eight-member final judging panel on 18 November, alleging that a “secret and illegal” or “impromptu” jury had already selected the Top 30 finalists before the official judging process began. He claimed this covert group comprised individuals who have personal relationships with some contestants, including an alleged affair between a selection committee member and a participant. He stated he had a “disrespectful conversation” with the Miss Universe Organisation’s CEO, Raul Rocha, about the lack of transparency, which led to his final decision to step down, as well as to refuse to be “part of this charade”.

Omar Harfouch in a IG reel explaining why he quit. Screen shot: omarharfouch/Instagram

Another judge, former French footballer Claude Makélélé also quit at about the same time as Mr Harfouch, citing “unforseen personal reasons” although many MU observers believe it was for reasons closer to the latter’s. And then make that three. Princess Camilla di Borbone delle Due Sicilie—the president of the judging committee, no less—is the latest to abandon ship. While she gave no reason, it is presumed her exit mirrors that of Mr Harfouch. The latest bombshell arrived two weeks after a mass walkout, which followed executive Nawat Itsaragrisil insulting Miss Mexico as a “dumb head”. He later waved it away as mere “damage”, as if he had simply dented a borrowed car, not fractured the entire event. MUO reacted to Mr Harfouch’s allegations, saying in a public statement, that the organisation “firmly clarifies that no impromptu jury has been created” and that “no external group has been authorized to evaluate delegates or select finalists”. They may offer “firm clarity”, but given the event’s current state of chaos, the organisation is hardly the arbiter of transparency.

Miss Universe 2025 had already been a spectacular organizational meltdown, but apparently, it required a literal physical collapse to officially confirm its descent into farce. Last night, during the preliminary evening gown round, Miss Universe Jamaica, Dr Gabrielle Henry, fell from the stage, requiring a stretcher to be summoned to take her off stage and to the hospital (she sustained no life-threatening injuries, but it isn’t clear if she is able to participate tomorrow). But the most shocking twist was that the pageant segment never paused: a cold testament to the show’s prioritising the broadcast schedule over the competitor’s well-being. The rest of the contestants maintained the eerie, forced façade of normalcy, parading as if stretchers were standard stage décor. The audience, meanwhile, had already secured the true spectacle, happily documenting the unfortunate delegate being hauled out onto the waiting stretcher.

Miss Universe Jamaica Dr Gabrielle Henry, moments before her fall. Screen shot: meekimodez/Instagram

The audience’s ghoulish camera work paid off: the videos are now officially trending, giving the entire world a clear view of the pageant’s literal collapse rather than a delegate’s unscripted fall. When Dr Henry took the involuntary decent, it was a moment so on-the-nose, it felt scripted by a satirist with a grudge. The organization had a choice: pause, acknowledge, recalibrate. Instead, it chose the pageant’s oldest reflex: pretend nothing happened, keep smiling, keep walking. While contestants continued their choreographed parade, the audience turned—not toward the gowns, but toward the stretcher and the person laying on it. Phones pointed at the stage, and for a moment, not for glamour, but for evidence. The crowd wasn’t watching a celebration anymore, they were witnessing a gloss-over in real time. The show’s refusal to stop was disturbing on so many levels but most critically, it confirmed that optics trump empathy, exposing the ritual of denial that underpins pageantry: if you don’t acknowledge the rupture, maybe the illusion will hold.

If Miss Universe 2025 proves anything, it’s that the beast isn’t just a foil to beauty, it’s the infrastructure that demands beauty perform under high-stress setups. The beast wears many hats: the “rigged” machinery that allegedly scripts outcomes before the show begins, the public shaming of women who don’t smile through exploitation, the empowerment that can be price-tagged, where contestants are supposedly asked to promote the sale of tickets to their own coronation, because even a guaranteed crowning couldn’t sell itself. Even the viewers are the beast too, consuming tragedy, not beauty. But maybe this year’s scandal is a beast of rupture worth honoring. Maybe the walkouts, the resignations, the empty seats are a kind of collective exhale: We’re done pretending this beauty is fine.