Shortly after Victoria Kjaer Theilvig was named the new Miss Universe on Saturday, she sat down for a press conference with the pageant’s CEO, Anne Jakrajutatip.
Theilvig is an accomplished dancer, beauty entrepreneur, and mental health advocate who uses her platform to share her story about overcoming abuse. But when a reporter asked Jakrajutatip about the evolution of the Miss Universe pageant, she fixated on Theilvig’s looks.
“Evolution?” the CEO asked, her eyes widening as she sat alongside Theilvig in a clip of the interview posted on Instagram by the pageant blog @roadtomissusa. “Evolution? We have blonde and blue eyes, so we’re coming to the ultimate evolution already. We don’t need any more evolution here. We already got the best here.”
Jakrajutatip previously came under fire for saying diverse women “can compete, but they can’t win.”
However, last year, Jakrajutatip said she would create a diverse pageant “for all women around the world.”
Some critics within the pageant world said this is the latest example that Jakrajutatip’s promises for Miss Universe may only be skin deep.
Jakrajutatip was in the audience at Miss Universe 2018 when Angela Ponce became the first transgender woman to compete.
It had been six years since Donald Trump, who owned Miss Universe from 1996 to 2015, overturned a decision by the organization to ban women who weren’t biologically born female.
“I stood up and applauded for her. I cried, and she also cried on the stage,” Jakrajutatip, who is transgender, told Them during a June 2023 interview.
“That moment, I thought, ‘This is it. This is a pageant I can turn into a platform, and it must be a women’s empowerment platform,'” she added.
Peoplesmind
