In a video post, she said she "will always stand for what I believe is right," and that she was only pushing for a "fair stage." Days later, Jurie gave up her own crown, and was also arrested for the incident, though released on bail. "There is a rule that you have to be married and not divorced, so I am taking my first steps in saying that the crown goes to the first runner-up," Jurie told the audience.ĭe Silva later said she is not divorced, and that she'd be taking legal action against Jurie. In a video of the crowning ceremony published by the Colombo Gazette, Jurie cited a pageant rule that prevents women who have been divorced from winning the title. Sri Lanka before her crown was taken by Caroline Jurie, who won the pageant in 2019 and is currently the reigning Mrs. The incident was captured on a televised broadcast of the ceremony, which showed De Silva being named the winner of Mrs. Sri Lanka" in April 2021, said she was injured after her crown was forcefully removed from her head onstage by a former winner. Trump sold the Miss Universe organization to WME-IMG in September after two television partners dropped the competition in response to his comments about illegal immigrants.Pushpika De Silva, a pageant queen who won the title of "Mrs. “There didn’t seem to be a purpose to have the swimsuit.” “It’s not just a beauty contest it’s ‘beauty with a purpose,’ ” Chris Wilmer, the national director of Miss World America and Miss United States, told ABC News. The Miss World pageant ended its swimsuit competition in 2014. But, she added, “In the next few years, we may grow from that.” “There is the whole thing of being confident in the fact you worked hard to get that body and you go to the gym and you eat healthy and do certain things,” she said. Julianne Hough, a host of Miss USA 2016, told USA Today that she understood the resistance to the swimsuit portion of the pageant, but defended the segment as being similar to going to the beach. “Our hope is that this decision will help all of Miss Teen USA’s fans recognize these young women for the strong, inspiring individuals they are.” “This decision reflects an important cultural shift we’re all celebrating that empowers women who lead active, purposeful lives and encourage those in their communities to do the same,” she wrote. Paula Shugart, the president of the Miss Universe Organization, said in a letter to state directors this week that the pageant was “committed to continuing to evolve in ways that celebrate women’s strength, confidence and beauty for years to come.” Martin, an author, wrote the same year “They’re outdated and restrictive and perpetuate a damaging link between real world success and a woman’s capacity to cultivate a very specific, stereotypical definition of beauty.” “Beauty pageants should go the way of the corset,” Courtney E. “Although pageant officials and contestants emphasize scholarships, talents and platform issues and repackage the swimsuit competition as the ‘lifestyle and fitness’ category, their rhetoric rings hollow,” Blain Roberts, a historian, wrote in 2013. In recent years, organizers have sought to focus on the offstage lives of the women and girls, pushing their accomplishments and charity work, but criticism remains steady. It’s part of a continuing effort to distance the pageants from their roots: a competition based entirely on the contestants’ appearance. Whether through swimsuits or athletic wear, the aim is to “celebrate being healthy, and being in shape and being comfortable in your own skin,” he added. Replacing the teenagers’ swimsuits with athletic wear - which he defined as clothes the contestants might wear to the gym or yoga class - should not be seen as “anti-swimsuit,” he said.