'Pageantgate' still pumping out outrage, derision and talk of plots
Just when you thought it couldn't get any more gobsmacking, "Pageantgate" blunders on for a third day of huffing and puffing about plots and faux pas and national self-esteem.
Stepping up to the plate to prattle on Tuesday: Online gossip guru Perez Hilton, one of the judges for Sunday's botched Miss Universe Pageant mis-crowning by host Steve Harvey of Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez Areval.
Which was followed two minutes later by a snatch-back of the tiara to re-crown the true winner, Miss Philippines, Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach.
Hilton told Good Morning America that he was as stunned and screaming as loudly as everyone else in the Planet Hollywood ballroom in Las Vegas after the unprecedented screw-up.
"After it ended, people were booing and screaming," Hilton said. "Oh my God, it was pandemonium inside." (Not to mention the pandemonium outside on social media.)
But true to his nature, Hilton also was suspicious. So were zillions of viewers who sensed a set-up. After all, we're still talking three days later about a pageant few Americans obsessed over lately, even when Donald Trump owned it.
"My first thought was, wow, this is rigged," Hilton confided. "Because I knew how I voted and all the others, all of us voted for Miss Philippines to win, so we were in shock.
"When we found out there was a mistake, I thought it was brilliant — they did this on purpose for publicity! This is how my mind works."
Hilton conceded there might be other explanations other than a conspiracy: Harvey just flubbed it.
"There was talk of Steve Harvey missing rehearsals, that he was out gambling, drinking, having a good time," Hilton suggested. "He made a mistake, but he also could have been tired and hung over. He just didn’t do his job well."
Hilton mostly discounted the teleprompter explanation. "There is a prompter but the moment where he crowns the winner is not on there so the other girls don't know (ahead)," he said. "On his card, he just read it incorrectly."
Should there be a joint crown this year?
"Miss Philippines deserved to win, but losing is the best thing that ever happened to (Miss) Colombia, so in one sense she truly is the winner," Hilton said.
Which is what Colombians are saying, too, when they're not threatening lawsuits over the debacle. There's even a petition on change.org demanding that Miss Colombia get back the crown. (Beauty pageants may not mean much anymore in the USA but they are a really important measure of national self-esteem in Colombia).
Meanwhile, the Miami Herald reported that attorneys at a Colombian law firm, De la Espriella, plan to file a lawsuit against the pageant. “The crown is an acquired right that cannot be taken away from us,” the law firm wrote on its Twitter account.
On Monday Colombia's president, Juan Manuel Santos, tweeted to Gutierrez that, "For us you'll always be our Miss Universe."
But a Colombian at least as important as the president, superstar Sofia Vergara, also took Gutierrez' side, posting on Instagram a picture of Gutierrez with the crown and, in Spanish, the sentiment that she's "The Queen" regardless.