The 74th Miss Universe pageant, held in Nonthaburi, Thailand, in November 2025, was supposed to be a triumph of global glamour. Instead, it played out as a spectacular public unravelling of a cultural institution. For the vast majority of audiences in the English-speaking world, beauty pageants have long since slipped off the radar, relegated to niche streaming platforms and ironic social media threads. But the noise emanating from this year’s contest was impossible to ignore. It was the sound of an industry collapsing under the weight of its own obsolescence, mired in allegations of corruption, backroom deals, and a catastrophic lack of self-awareness.
When Mexico’s Fátima Bosch Fernández was crowned Miss Universe 2025, the confetti had barely settled before the legitimacy of her victory was dismantled by the very people employed to judge it. The subsequent fallout – which included a judge’s explosive resignation, bizarre geopolitical excuses from the pageant’s owner, and a high-profile title renunciation – reads less like a celebration of women’s empowerment and more like a satirical boardroom drama. Yet, beneath the absurdities lies a much sadder truth about the business of beauty: it is a hollow enterprise desperately trying to find a pulse in a world that no longer needs it.
The Illusion of Meritocracy
At the core of the 2025 scandal is a fundamental breach of the pageant’s only remaining currency: the illusion of a fair fight. Days before the coronation night, French-Lebanese composer and businessman Omar Harfouch, who had been appointed to the official judging panel, publicly resigned. His departure was not a quiet exit. Harfouch detonated a PR crisis by claiming that the entire competition was rigged. According to his statements, the Top 30 finalists had been “pre-selected” by an unofficial, “impromptu jury” without the knowledge or participation of the official judges.
Harfouch went further, alleging a direct conflict of interest involving the Miss Universe Organization’s co-owner, Mexican businessman Raul Rocha. Harfouch claimed that Bosch’s victory was a predetermined outcome engineered by Rocha due to personal business dealings with the contestant’s father. Following a “disrespectful conversation” with Rocha regarding transparency, Harfouch walked away, later doubling down on his accusations and branding Bosch a “fraudulent” winner.
Historically, cries of a “rigged” pageant are as traditional as the swimsuit segment, usually dismissed as sour grapes from losing camps. Beauty, after all, is inherently subjective. However, Harfouch’s allegations carried the weight of an insider breaking rank, shattering the fragile facade that the competition is a merit-based evaluation of poise, intellect, and advocacy. When the legitimacy of the crown is reduced to alleged corporate nepotism, the product itself is destroyed. Fans in nations where pageantry is treated with the reverence of a national sport – particularly across Latin America and the Philippines – invest genuine emotional and financial capital into these events. For them, the allegations were not just a scandal; they were a profound betrayal of trust by an organisation prioritising boardroom alliances over its audience.
Passports and Prejudice
If the allegations of rigging exposed the pageant’s compromised ethics, the treatment of Miss Côte d’Ivoire, Olivia Yacé, exposed its staggering insularity. Yacé, a heavy fan-favourite who ultimately placed as the 4th Runner-Up, became the centre of a different, arguably more damaging controversy. In the aftermath of the pageant, Raul Rocha attempted to defend the judging outcome during a livestream interview. Instead of offering a dignified rationale, he inadvertently articulated a deeply xenophobic reality of the “global” competition.
Rocha argued that citizens of Côte d’Ivoire require visas to enter 175 countries, implying that Yacé would have been an administrative burden for the organisation. In a quote that will likely haunt his tenure, Rocha stated that if she had won, “she’s going to be the Miss Universe who spent a whole year in an apartment because of the cost of the visa process with lawyers.” He justified this by claiming the titleholder must travel freely to maintain “contact with people in the world.”
The backlash was instantaneous. Rocha’s comments effectively confirmed that a contestant’s geopolitical origins and the strength of her nation’s passport were active criteria in judging her worthiness – a stark contradiction for an event literally named “Miss Universe”. The cruelty of the remark was compounded by its factual inaccuracy. Fellow contestant Ophély Mézino (Miss Guadeloupe) publicly stepped forward to point out that Yacé holds an American passport, completely negating Rocha’s logistical defence. The spectacle of a pageant owner openly admitting that women from the Global South are viewed as geopolitical liabilities laid bare the inherent inequalities of the system. It transformed a competition ostensibly about uniting the world into a stark reminder of border politics and administrative prejudice.
The Resignation Contagion
The modern pageant contract, once viewed as a golden ticket to global fame and lucrative endorsements, is increasingly being recognised as a toxic chalice. The women competing in these arenas are highly educated, ambitious, and politically aware; they are quickly realising that the gruelling terms of their servitude are not worth the psychological toll.
Following Rocha’s disastrous remarks, Olivia Yacé took decisive action. In November 2025, she officially renounced her regional title of “Miss Universe Africa and Oceania,” announcing her complete withdrawal from any future affiliation with the Miss Universe Organization. Yacé stated her decision was guided by her core values of respect, dignity, and excellence. Walking away from the crown was a powerful reclamation of agency, but it was not an isolated incident.
Her resignation is part of a growing contagion within the pageant ecosystem. In May 2024, the Miss Universe brand suffered a similar haemorrhage when Miss USA Noelia Voigt and Miss Teen USA UmaSofia Srivastava resigned their titles within days of each other, citing mental health struggles, silencing, and a toxic management culture. The sheen has completely worn off. Titleholders are no longer willing to endure corporate mismanagement, public humiliation, and punishing schedules in exchange for a rhinestone tiara. When the winners and top finalists are actively discarding their titles, the organisation is left defending an empty throne.
Objectification in High Definition
The Miss Universe Organization finds itself trapped in an impossible paradox. Under the stewardship of JKN Global Group and Raul Rocha, it has desperately tried to modernise. The rules have been amended to allow married women, mothers, and older contestants to compete. The broadcast leans heavily into the women’s philanthropic “platforms,” showcasing their degrees and charitable endeavours in a bid for contemporary relevance.
Yet, this progressive posturing cannot disguise the foundational mechanics of the event. At its core, the pageant still demands that these accomplished women parade across a stage in bikinis to be assigned a numerical value by a panel of judges. You cannot modernise objectification; you can only rebrand it. The cognitive dissonance of celebrating a woman’s advocacy for global peace while simultaneously scrutinizing her glutes is jarring. The cultural conversation has simply moved past the premise.
We live in an era where the mechanics of celebrity and influence have been democratised. As noted in The Year Pop Culture Became Everyone’s Business: What Defined 2024, the public is increasingly critical of manufactured spectacles and demands authenticity from its cultural icons. Furthermore, the performative modesty and heavily regulated aesthetics of pageants feel archaic compared to the unfiltered, transgressive expressions of modern fashion and celebrity. In a world where Cannes Tried to Ban the Naked Dress. The Nipples Won., the rigid, sanitised glamour of a beauty queen waving politely feels entirely out of step with contemporary culture. Women no longer need a sash to build a platform; they can launch businesses, run for office, or command massive online audiences without seeking the approval of male pageant executives.
A Business in Decline
Ultimately, Miss Universe is not a public institution; it is a business. And like any legacy media business failing to adapt to the digital age, it is facing a crisis of capital. The organisation has been passed between owners – from Donald Trump to IMG, and currently to Thai media conglomerate JKN Global Group, which itself filed for bankruptcy in 2023 before partnering with Rocha’s Legacy Holding.
The financial precarity of the organisation explains the frantic attempts to monetise every aspect of the pageant, from branded skincare lines to premium streaming access. But the product they are selling relies entirely on prestige, and prestige cannot survive allegations of rigged voting and xenophobic executive rants. If the pageant is perceived merely as a vehicle for executing state oil contracts and enriching its owners, the fan base will inevitably fracture.
The Final Walk
The 2025 Miss Universe pageant will likely go down in history as the moment the facade finally shattered. The brand may limp on, sustained by licensing deals and sheer momentum, but it is effectively a zombie institution. The controversies are now infinitely more compelling than the competition itself. We care more about the lawsuits than the evening gowns; we are more inspired by the resignations than the coronations.
The slow death of the beauty pageant won’t be brought about by a massive feminist protest or government regulation. It will dissolve into a puddle of its own irrelevance, arguing with itself on social media while the rest of the world scrolls past. Olivia Yacé walking away from her title was the most vital, modern action the pageant world has seen in decades. She realised her dignity was worth more than a crown – and that is the only kind of role model young women actually need.
