Atlanta, Dec 9, 2019 — Miss Universe clarified in a tweet that the winner of the Miss Universe 2019 National Costume is the Philippines, not Malaysia as previously announced.
Earlier during the pageant, Steve Harvey was thought to have accidentally read out the wrong winner, leading Miss Universe Malaysia Shweta Sekhon to correct the host.
At that point, Harvey told Shweta and the audience that he was merely reading from the teleprompter.
It turned out he was right after all.
The winner of the National Costume category is Miss Universe Philippines Gazini Ganados.
Disappointed pageant fans have taken to Twitter to voice their discontent over the blunder that robbed Ganados of her winning moment and Shweta’s short-lived victory.
According to entertainment news site Deadline, a Miss Universe pageant insider said Shweta “wasn’t aware we’d be announcing Philippines first, so she jumped the gun when Harvey started with that news,” the insider was quoted as saying.
“Harvey made a joke of it, but no mistakes regarding the national costume winner were made by him, the prompter or production.”
Other observers said Ganados was on stage at the time for the Top 20 and couldn’t be interviewed so Malaysia’s national costume was given a spotlight instead.
The clip of Harvey interviewing Shweta which was shared on Twitter earlier today has been removed from the Miss Universe official Twitter page.
In 2015, Harvey wrongly announced the wrong winner during the pageant.
The 62-year-old host read out Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutiérrez as the winner instead of the Philippines’ Pia Wurtzbach.
