TOP beauty model Tania Tatenda Aaron has opened up on her experience during her participation at the Miss Global pageant held in Mexico late last year but said she did not allow the unprofessional handling of the event to break her stride.
BY FREEMAN MAKOPA
Aaron told NewsDay Life & Style that the pageant was marred with controversy as one of the models — Miss Mexico Palmira Ruiz — received royal treatment as her alleged boyfriend was one of the sponsors and wanted the crown to go to that country.
“Miss Mexico was given a special treatment, like being driven while all other contestants were in buses, having her own bedroom-suite while we were sharing a room in twos. Having three assistants and her own photographer, makeup artists with some of us doing everything on our own,” she said.
“But then it came out the main sponsor was Miss Mexico’s boyfriend, Mr Ramiro Gutierrez, so yes, what would you have expected? What mattered to me was having a good place to sleep, good food and doing every task given to us.”
Aaron said one of the organisers, Geri Doncheva, pulled out in protest as the development was a violation of principles, but the pageant’s chief executive, Van Pham, assured the models the pull-out had nothing to do with the pageant.
Aaron also expressed concern over the cancellation of various competitions including the Talent and Swimsuit contests which caused a lot of confusion among judges.
“A lot started happening and it was draining us as the contestants. Come the 18th (of December), the night of the final, we went to the venue at 5pm instead of 6am because the CEO and the sponsor were in meetings, obviously not agreeing on whatever they were talking about,” she said.
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“The show was supposed to start at 7pm, but we finally started at 10pm with the national costume and the cut down (the number of participants) to top 25, but to my surprise Zimbabwe was not in the Top 25.”
The judging, she said, was also replete with errors as the contestant judged for the best evening gown winner was not in the Top 10.
“The judges got confused too and it came to light that there was mistake made because they didn’t include the marks from the previous weeks and they had to correct it,” she said.
She, however, said she would not let her experiences deter her as she did not want to pay attention to the negative developments.
Miss Zimbabwe International country director and Miss Global Zimbabwe committee member Patience Lusengo who was responsible for the scouting of Miss Global participants in Zimbabwe confirmed the developments, but said she did not have much detail.
“I heard about the drama… People boycotted because he (the boyfriend) wanted her (Miss Mexico) to win. She wasn’t the favourite to win. The judges were put off and they crowned someone. That’s all I know about it,” she said.
