Steve Harvey's Miss Universe mix-up gives internet new beauty pageant failure to mock
The 2015 Miss Universe pageant will go down in beauty pageant blunder history, just like many others before it
Comedian Steve Harvey is in damage control mode after accidentally crowning the wrong contestant winner during a televised Miss Universe pageant.
The cringeworthy moment came on Sunday night when Harvey was forced to interrupt Miss Colombia's celebratory stage walk and admit that Miss Philippines had, in fact, won the competition. The incident quickly grew to dominate news headlines and internet chatter.
"how badly is your day going? on a scale of zero to Steve Harvey"
—@CharlieChuWhile some are now suggesting that the gaffe was part of a publicity stunt, the first-time pageant host seemed genuinely sorry about what happened both during and after the awkward moment.
"Okay folks, I have to apologize" Harvey said in the show's final moments as he approached Miss Colombia, who was still waving her country's flag and blowing kisses to the audience.
"I will take responsibility for this," he continued. "It was my mistake. It was on the card. Horrible mistake... Please don't hold it against the ladies. Please don't. We feel so badly."
The show closed with a painful shot of Colombia's Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo having the crown taken from her head and given to Miss Philippines, Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach.
Harvey later misspelled the names of both contestants' countries when he apologized after the show to them on Twitter.
"I want to apologize emphatically to Miss Philippians and Miss Columbia," he wrote in a tweet that was deleted and replaced minutes later. "This was a terribly honest human mistake and I am so regretful."
Many are saying that Harvey will go down in embarrassing flub history for what happened on Sunday night, and they're likely right – but based on what we've seen of beauty pageant scandals in the past, it may only be a matter of time before someone comes along to steal his crown.
Remember these folks?
Lauren Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina Teen USA 2007
A geography question posed to Miss Teen USA third runner-up Lauren Caitlin Upton in 2007 yielded what might just be the most memorable – or at least memeable – televised pageant moments of all time.
For those that don't remember the ensuing internet frenzy, here's what Upton said when asked why one-fifth of Americans can't find their own country on a map:
I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should—our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. uh, or, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq, and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.
A clip from that broadcast on YouTube has been seen more than 64 million times since it was uploaded in 2007, and others of Upton's answer have been seen millions of times more.
The then 18-year-old became synonymous with both beauty pageants and live TV fails in the months following that pageant's broadcast, earning her modelling, acting and reality show gigs for years to come.
It wasn't easy being the butt of America's joke, however, even if it was relatively short-lived.
"I lost a lot of close friends over it," she said to New York Magazine in an interview published this month.
Now 26, Upton has brown hair, lives in Los Angeles, goes by the first name "Caite" and is rarely ever recognized from the pageant video.
"I definitely went through a period where I was very, very depressed," she said of that period in her life. "I had some very dark moments where I thought about committing suicide," she said.
"Somebody once put a letter in my parents' mailbox about how my body was going to be eaten alive by ants and burned in a freak fire. And then it said, in all caps, GO DIE CAITE UPTON, GO DIE FOR YOUR STUPIDITY. That's the kind of stuff people would say to me for two years."
Carrie Prejean, Miss California USA 2009
Like Upton, Carrie Prejean made headlines around the world for her response to a pageant question.
The San Diego, Calif., native, who was 22 at the time, was asked by 2009 Miss USA pageant judge Perez Hilton (a celebrity blogger who is gay) if she believed same-sex marriage should be legalized within the U.S.
"I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offence to anybody out there," she said during her answer. "But that's how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman."
Prejean's opinion drew heavy criticism for both the contestant and the pageant, especially after Hilton spoke out against her on his website.
After she began speaking to crowds opposed to gay marriage, she was fired from her position by Donald Trump, who at the time owned the Miss Universe pageant and its subsidiaries.
Miss Universe Canada 2013
Wrong Miss Canada (one on left) crowned due to a typo! (discovered after live coronation, one on the right won) <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CNN?src=hash">#CNN</a> <a href="http://t.co/8UU0N4Uzi4">pic.twitter.com/8UU0N4Uzi4</a>
—@wareFLOHarvey, meanwhile, isn't alone in leading a pageant contestant to believe she'd won when the crown was meant for someone else.
Denise Garrido of Bradford, Ont., was named Miss Universe Canada at a Toronto pageant in May of 2013. Just a day later, however, she was told she'd actually won the prize of runner-up. The pageant's true winner was Riza Santos of Calgary.
The error was blamed on a "typo," which ruffled the feathers of pageant fans and sparked a wave of attention to the Miss Universe Canada competition.
"You go through this complete high and your entire family, your town is all celebrating, wishing you congratulations," Garrido told CNN after the story broke. "And then 24 hours later, you're told, 'Oh, by the way...'"
The pageant's organizing body, Beauties of Canada, posted a statement on its website at the time saying:
"This is an unfortunate circumstance where a human error was made, and in such a situation, as difficult as it is, it is only right to correct the error."
Both women accepted news of the error gracefully, as Canadians are wont to do.
The same cannot be said for what happened when the wrong child was named winner at a Scottish beauty pageant for children this past summer.
Or when the runner-up of Brazil's Miss Amazonas 2015 pageant was so upset about losing that she attacked the woman who'd been give the crown and ripped it out of her hair.
So you see, Mr. Harvey, it could always be worse.