When Anne Jakrajutatip was asked how she would evolve beauty pageants, the Miss Universe CEO didn’t hesitate. She didn’t believe evolution was necessary.
“Evolution?” Jakrajutatip asked, her eyes widening as she sat alongside Victoria Kjær Theilvig during a press conference in November 2024 after the 21-year-old from Denmark was crowned Miss Universe.
“We have blond and blue eyes,” Jakrajutatip continued, referring to Theilvig’s appearance. “We don’t need any more evolution here. We already got the best here.”
At the time, the comment shocked many in the pageant community, while others weren’t fazed. Now, former Miss USA Noelia Voigt and Miss Teen USA UmaSofia Srivastava are sharing their thoughts on the controversial comment.
“It shows that we’re moving backward,” Srivastava told Business Insider during an August interview. “When I was picking a pageant to compete in, what stood out to me about the Miss USA organization was that there were so many different types of women.”
“I wanted to compete for an organization that cherishes that and doesn’t have one type of winner or one type of beauty,” she added. “That is obviously changing.”
A representative for Miss Universe didn’t respond to a request for comment.
‘It’s not the 2000s anymore’
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Voigt and Srivastava both made history when they won their respective pageants in September 2023.
Srivastava was the first winner of Mexican-Indian descent to win the Miss Teen USA title, and Voigt was the first Venezuelan-American to wear the Miss USA crown. She went on to place in the top 20 at Miss Universe, which oversees the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants.
Voigt said Jakrajutatip’s comments felt reminiscent of some pageant fans’ reaction to her win in 2023.
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“The year I competed, people were like, ‘We’re due for a blond-haired, blue-eyed winner,'” Voigt recalled. “And then when I won, people were like, ‘Oh, another brunette.'”
She told Business Insider that Jakrajutatip’s comment could’ve been said to “please angry pageant fans” who had complained for several years about not having a Miss Universe winner with blond hair and blue eyes.
“But you run a beauty pageant,” Voigt said. “There are beautiful people in the world who look very, very different from each other, so pause with that rhetoric. What she said was very destructive.”
Srivastava said Jakrajutatip’s comments also “brought up a lot of emotions” and reminded her of her own experiences with racism, starting from a young age.
“It is so hard to constantly try to fit the mold of a standard that you just realistically can never fit,” she said. “I can never just magically snap my fingers and have blue eyes.”
“I’m in a place where I have pretty tough skin now, but there are girls that haven’t had to develop that and shouldn’t have to,” Srivastava added. “That’s ridiculous and outdated. It’s not the 2000s anymore.”
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The pageant world had mixed reactions to Jakrajutatip’s remarks. Miss Universe 2024 first runner-up Chidimma Adetshina, who made history as the first Miss Nigeria to place in the top five, told Business Insider in November that she was “not really offended by it.”
“Maybe that’s just her perspective,” she said about Jakrajutatip. “Maybe that’s how she felt about the evolution of Miss Universe.”
Others, including current Miss America Abbie Stockard, took issue with Jakrajutatip’s words and how they would affect the image of pageant queens.
“That’s just so frustrating to hear because I know I fall into that category, and it just seems like it takes away from all the hard work I put into it,” Stockard told Business Insider after she was crowned in January.
A string of controversies
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Jakrajutatip’s comment was just the latest in a string of controversies from the Miss Universe and Miss USA organizations.
Voigt and Srivastava never finished their reigns, relinquishing the titles in May 2024 within days of each other. It was the first time in the pageant’s 72-year history that a woman had given up her crown.
The mothers of the pageant queens told Business Insider at the time that Voigt and Srivastava, who are bound by nondisclosure agreements, had endured “eight months of torture and abuse” under the leadership of Miss USA CEO Laylah Rose, who has denied the allegations.
The Miss Universe Organization never investigated Voigt and Srivastava’s allegations regarding Rose. A spokesperson for the organization told Business Insider in July 2024 that Miss Universe was a “beacon of women empowerment and diversity” and remained committed to “promoting inclusion, transparency, and integrity, which will not be swayed by unfounded allegations.”
Jakrajutatip’s “blond and blue eyes” remark also came just weeks after she went on Instagram Live and judged photos of the Miss Universe 2024 contestants alongside the pageant’s advisor Osmel Sousa, who once told The New York Times that inner beauty “was something that unpretty women invented to justify themselves.”
In another video, filmed in October 2023 and obtained by Business Insider, Jakrajutatip told her staff that diverse pageant contestants “can compete, but they can’t win,” calling it a “communication strategy.”
In a statement posted on her Facebook page in February 2024, Jakrajutatip said she had been discussing a potential Miss Universe reality show.
“The way they’re handling everything is laughable at a certain point,” Voigt told Business Insider in August. “How are you in charge of this organization and doing these things? It makes me really mad. This is straight-up clownery.”
