The winner of Ms Sri Lanka’s pageant is reportedly recovering from a head injury after a last-minute fight for her new crown on Sunday, when another beauty queen took the stage and attempted to strip her of her victory.
The bizarre breakup of the beauty pageant erupted at the end of a ceremony on national television in Colombo, just moments after Pushpika De Silva was crowned Ms Sri Lanka.
Caroline Jurie of Sri Lanka, reigning Ms World, suddenly rushed to the stage and removed the crown from De Silva’s head so that she could hand it over to the finalist, video broadcasts. Jurie claimed that De Silva was in fact divorced, so she took it upon herself to award the crown to someone else.
“There’s a rule that we all have to be married and not divorced, so I’m taking the first step by saying that the crown goes to the first finalist,” Jurie told the audience at an unexpected point in the contest.
In this photo taken on April 4, 2021, Ms. Sri Lanka 2020 winner Caroline Jurie (2-L) withdraws the crown from 2021 winner Pushpika de Silva (C) as she is disqualified by the jury on the divorce charge, during a beauty pageant for married women in Colombo.
Jurie then walked over to De Silva and spent several moments struggling to get the crown off his head. She ultimately succeeded and gave the crown to the finalist, who then gave a victory speech to the audience. De Silva could be seen rushing off the stage in tears.
De Silva later claimed on Facebook that she suffered a head injury and had to be treated in hospital for the incident.
She also denied having divorced, although she admitted that she was living apart from her partner for “personal reasons”.
The contest organizers subsequently confirmed De Silva’s victory and carried her back as Ms. Sri Lanka.
“We are disappointed,” Chandimal Jayasinghe, head of Ms. Sri Lanka World, told the BBC. “It was a shame the way Caroline Jurie performed on stage and the organization Ms. World has already opened an investigation into this.
