With post-scandal scandals, a global spectacle designed to crown harmony now hemorrhages queens faster than it can coronate them

Miss Universe Côte d‘Ivoire Olivia Yacé receiving her final question. Screen shot: oliviayace/Instagram

Miss Universe 2025 has spiraled into a post-scandal scandal. Following the initial uproar involving Miss Mexico two weeks ago, the competition for the most dramatic exit continued off-stage. Both Miss Estonia and Miss Côte d’Ivoire have publicly abdicated their titles, adding fuel to what is widely considered the most chaotic edition of the pageant. The 74th Miss Universe, held in Bangkok, Thailand, has been riddled with—and shall be remembered—for scandals, backlash, and resignations. From disputes over judging transparency to cultural insensitivity, the event is widely regarded as the most turbulent in the pageant’s history.

After placing in the top five at Miss Universe 2025, Miss Côte d’Ivoire Olivia Yacé has just renounced her role as Miss Universe Africa and Oceania. She explained that she wanted to remain a “role model” for the next generation, distancing herself from the controversies surrounding the organization. Just a day earlier, Miss Estonia Brigitta Schaback announced via Instagram that she was stepping down from her title as Miss Universe Estonia. She cited a “value clash” with the pageant, making it clear she no longer wanted to be associated with the competition. The crowning of Miss Mexico, Fátima Bosch, as the winner was already fraught, with fans and contestants voicing disappointment. These abdications have now turned the fallout into a crisis: The contestants have rejected not just the results, but the institution itself.

Miss Estonia Brigitta Schaback during the evening wear round. Screen shot: brigittaschaback/Instagram

Increasingly, it looks to us like a generational issue. For many decades, MU pageants and the like upheld a familiar symbolic order: The crowns, titles, and the idea that beauty queens embodied national pride and institutional legitimacy. Abdication was almost unthinkable; the crown was supposed to be bigger than the individual. That’s the paradox at the heart of Miss Universe, and why this year’s resignations feel so seismic. The crown was not about the winner’s individuality, but about her becoming a vessel for “Miss Universe”—a brand, a spectacle, a diplomatic costume. Regardless of the situation, winners are expected to subsume their quirks, politics, and contradictions into the pageant’s script. The institution thrives on the idea that the crown endures while individuals pass through. Queens are interchangeable; the brand is, by contrast, eternal.

The current contestants are overwhelmingly Gen-Z women who operate and use their platforms distinctly. Yet, Miss Universe still clings to a 20th‑century spectacle template and the rehearsed platitudes about “world peace” or the lessons a woman can offer to those younger. The pageant is stuck in a boomer fantasy of harmony, while its contestants are clearly digital natives of dissent. The women grew up in an era of livestreams, receipts, and call‑outs. They expect accountability. MUO still operates like a closed cabal, where decisions are made in a clandestine manner and demanding contestants to “smile and obey”, with security always ready to be deployed to ensure compliance. But Gen-Zers value “authenticity”. They will have no qualms walking off stage, resigning titles, or posting unfiltered critiques on Instagram. MUO prefers to choreograph empowerment as a brand asset. The only thing they are crowning now is their own obsolescence.

Fatima Bosch’s winning moment. Photo: fatimabosch/Instagram

Gen-Z women are fluent in protest language. They don’t hesitate to resign, expose hypocrisy, or demand structural change. Their power stems from their digital fluency and social media presence, enabling them to craft and rapidly circulate concise, values-driven, and highly shareable slogans or memes that amplify collective grievances and transcend borders. These contestants own their narratives. They arrive at the pageant with established audiences, making the organization redundant as an amplification tool. When they resign, they take those audiences with them, leaving MUO looking hollow. MUO’s sad organizational model assumes contestants will endure mistreatment for the sake of the crown. The women won’t. They don’t need MUO to validate them; therefore, when the organization attempts to, it feels redundant and ridiculous.

This isn’t simply about beauty queens abandoning the crown; it’s a declaration of sovereignty and protest, even if currently only symbolic. In turning down the global platform of Miss Universe, they are not merely resigning from a title; they are deploying their visibility to issue a seismic indictment of the pageant’s underlying values and fast-fading cultural authority, demanding a reckoning for the very system that sought to crown them. For the new guard, the crown is just a temporary megaphone, not a lifelong mortgage on validation. This is satire in action: The pageant’s by-now clichéd symbols are being rejected by the very women meant to embody them. If the world has changed, the Universe must, too.