It was supposed to be an auspicious occasion. The Miss World was commemorating its 70th anniversary, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic it had to postpone its staging in 2020 and moved to a year later. Miss World 2016 Stephanie del Valle, who since her reign had ingratiated herself with Julia Morley and the Miss World Organization so closely enough to be designated as a “Beauty with a Purpose Ambassador” and a constant presence in Miss World-related activities even beyond her reign, saw a major opportunity and persuaded Julia & Co. to hold the auspicious edition in her home country of Puerto Rico. The reasons are multi-pronged, though I’ll summarize them to three: 1) To provide a splashy comeback after the world shut down from the pandemic; 2) To promote Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from the devastation from Hurricane Maria back in 2017; and 3) to boost Stephanie’s own profile, to present herself as a hero to both the Miss World Organization and Puerto Rico, which could then further her own career ambitions in the entertainment industry.
Initially, things seem to have been going well, but suddenly there were murmurings of a COVID-19 outbreak in this pageant–reportedly, 23 contestants and 16 Miss World personnel were infected. There were rumors that because of this, they couldn’t even conduct a proper interview for all the contestants and backup plans were discussed to determine how to select the rest of the quarterfinalists. Hours before the staging of the finals on 16 December, it was announced that the pageant final would be moved to a later date. It was a major blow to this pageant, as apparently not enough proper precautions were in place to prevent such outbreak from happening–compare this to the successful stagings of Miss Grand International and Miss Universe, with the latter even dealing with an infected contestant*1. Eventually, the finals was rescheduled for 90 days after the original finals date, with only the Top 40 to return for final interviews and the coronation.
*1 France’s Clemence Botino was tested positive upon arrival, promptly placed under a 10-day quarantine, which still was enough time for her to still be in competition and eventually finished in the Top 10.
The fallout from this fiasco was severe. It seems currently the blame has been placed mainly on the shoulders of Stephanie and her associated organizations D’Val Enterprises and Reignite Puerto Rico foundation. The Puerto Rican government sued these entities for failure to reimburse their invested funds because of the postponement. The mess not only ruptured Stephanie’s connection with Julia Morley, but within the Miss World Organization two erstwhile stalwarts decided to part ways–musical director Mike Dixon and choreographer/stage director Donna Derby-Walsh, the latter having a personal connection with Stephanie as her son, Brandon Walsh is dating the former Miss World. Stepping in to organize the finals in light of this departure is reported crypto tycoon Brock Pierce with wife Crystal Rose Pierce and their Puerto RIco with a Purpose and Integro foundations. There are legal proceedings currently ongoing pitting Brock’s camp against Stephanie’s.
The three-month gap not only resulted in change in key personnel (and mix of judges), but the world-at-large experienced significant changes that might have also played a part in affecting the final outcome. First, the Disney film Encanto became a worldwide global pop culture phenomenon, with the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno“ blazing the global hit parade. Then, most importantly, Russia’s Vladimir Putin went ahead with his plan to invade Ukraine.
So how was the conduct of the final? The telecast opened with a pre-taped segment featuring host Peter Andre standing in front of the Jose Miguel Agrelot Coliseum (which I will refer to as “the Coliseum” moving forward), acknowledging that the venue was the original site for the final, but COVID-19 changed all of that. This then segued to the pre-taped opening number with the contestants dancing in their national costumes. They were presented in four groups, apparently based on their team designations during the Sports challenge event. For each group, they danced to a Puerto RIcan hit song–the first was the rousing “Vivir Mi Vida [Live My Life]” by Marc Anthony a huge 2013 Latin smash, then a commercial break, then the next two groups were seamlessly presented using Ricky Martin songs, “Pegate [Get Closer]” from 2006 and “Que Rico Fuera [How Sweet It Would Be]” from 2021 the latter featuring Chilean-American artist Paloma Mami, followed by another break and a final sequence featuring Olga Tañón‘s 2017 single “La Gran Fiesta [The Grand Fiesta]“. Throughout all these sequences, the contestants were accompanied by a group of male and female backup dancers. The male backup dancers were dressed up in black suits with bowties for most of the segments, and they actually provided a nod to Miss World history as many of their shows in the late 1960s to early 1980s featured opening musical segments with such dancers. There will be more historical nods peppered in this year’s finals. Overall, I always welcome seeing the contestants performing and presented in their national costumes, but I wish they revert back to a more orderly format–back in 2017 and 2018 they were organized by continents/regions and in 2019 it was done in strict alphabetical order–either format makes more sense than the hodgepodge we witnessed. Also, there seems to be abrupt breaks, and flows between the songs played are non-existent–we can partly blame the fact that during the taping of this segment some contestants were absent because of COVID-19 infection.
At this point, this is where I’ll pay tribute to the non-finalists who deserve some further notice. First is the Holly Carpenter award, for the ladies who failed to figure in any challenge event shortlists. In third place, we have NAMIBIA (Annerie Mare). In second place, it’s SPAIN (Ana Garcia) and finally the winner is BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA (Adna Biber)–I feel sad they only limited the Top Model shortlist to 13 because if they expanded that roster a bit this lady deserved to be cited and noticed as I found her performance in this event very sterling.
At the time I made my “Fearful” Forecast, I heard they were supposed to only select a Top 30, but they have decided to expand to a Top 40 after all. Anyway, many of the additions were in my “Bubbling Under” list, so I can say I was only off by four choices–36/40 I got. So for these four, they are in contention for the Ruth Ocumarez award. In 4th place, it’s SLOVAKIA (Leona Novoberdalu), who had the misfortune of being one of the infected contestants so she was not featured at all in the opening segment. In 3rd place, we have JAMAICA (Khalia Hall). In 2nd place, it’s NIGERIA (Oluchi Madubuike). This year’s winner of the Ruth Ocumarez award is JAPAN (Tamaki Hoshi)–she made a big splash in the Talent competition and she proved to be great communicator during the Head-to-Head challenge, so I found it shocking that she fell short of being among the 40; I would’ve preferred her to advance instead of another Asian contestant.
After the pre-taped opening number, the program switched to a live feed of the final venue, the Coca-Cola Music Hall. This venue was clearly much smaller than the Coliseum, and it seems there wasn’t even room to put the 70-member Puerto Rico Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Angel Velez) to the sideline that they instead took up centerstage, leaving very little room for the 40 quarterfinalists to navigate. This scaled-down setup actually is a throwback to the earlier days of Miss World, as the Lyceum Ballroom in London (which hosted the pageant from 1951-1968) was also a small space and there was very little room for the contestants to assemble onstage all at once. Moreover, the live orchestra also hearkens back to how the Miss World was conducted from its inception to around the 1990s. The throwbacks continue with the hosts of this year’s pageant, English*2 singer and television personality Peter Andre and Mexican*3 singer/actor/presenter Fernando Allende. This hosting pairing is again another throwback to the mid-1960s to 1970s, when this pageant employed what I call the “two-blokes-in-tuxedos” configuration.
*2 Some fans might presume Peter is Australian–the fact is he’s born in England and then migrated to Australia when he was six and started his career there before moving back to Britain and continuing his career. He’s of Greek-Cypriot descent, by the way, similar to the late George Michael.
*3 Fernando is Mexican, but he has been calling Puerto Rico home for the longest time–he married a Puerto Rican.
After the requisite host introductions, they then proceed to recap the results of the various challenge events, starting with Head-to-Head, followed by Sports, Multimedia, Talent, and Top Model. After the Talent recap, as is now tradition they presented the winner live to perform her talent–this year it’s MONGOLIA (Burte-Ujin Anu) with her contortionist act. The recaps were briefer and brisker than in previous years and most fans found this highly welcome.
After the recap, they then segue to another segment pre-taped in December at the Coliseum: the contestants dancing in silver fringed dresses provided by the official dress designer for this year’s pageant, Ashley Lauren. The song they danced to was “La Gozadera [Good Time]” by Gente de Zona featuring Marc Anthony. It should be noted that originally, Gente de Zona along with a few other musical acts were supposed to be featured live as musical guests, but I suppose the COVID-19 outbreak scuttled those plans.
It was at this point that we would then finally see the 40 quarterfinalists live. Basically the format was that they would each march in their evening gowns while a 15-second video clip of them in national costumes along the streets of Old San Juan with their own voiceover introduction playing in the backdrop. I would like to note that in most live broadcasts, we would see the contestants walking onstage, but on the edited version on the Miss World YouTube channel, they emphasized the video backdrop and then a 1-second shot of them in their gowns. The order of the parade goes like this: first are the fast-track champions*4, followed by the winners of the Head-to-Head challenge, followed by the Beauty with a Purpose (BWAP) finalists*5 and finally the rest of the Top 40 in alphabetical order.
*4 Talent champion MONGOLIA was not included in this first group presented because of the time needed for her to change from her talent wardrobe to her evening gown. So she marched last instead.
*5 One of the six BWAP finalists is also one of the Head-to-Head challenge winners, so she marched with the Head-to-Head champions instead of this group.
After the Top 40 were introduced, they featured a taped tourism segment to of course promote the island of Puerto Rico. Though Stephanie is practically gone from this pageant, her voiceover during this segment (and earlier in parts of the challenge events recap) remained intact. Then, back to the live feed Fernando Allende decided to perform a song with the orchestra–an old chestnut called “En Mi Viejo San Juan [In My Old San Juan]“, a song originally recorded by El Trio Vegabajeño in 1943 but since covered by numerous Latin artists since then. Fernando warbling is another throwback, as between 1976 to 1979, the host singing to an orchestra was a feature of the programme–Andy Williams in 1977 and Sacha Distel in 1976*6, 1978, and 1979. Interestingly, Fernando’s number was edited out in the version shown on Miss World’s official YouTube channel.
*6 Technically, Sacha was introduced as a guest performer, not a host, in 1976, but he was the one who conducted the Top 7 interview, so he actually had a hosting role that year.
After Fernando’s number, the Orchestra launched into frenetic salsa music and the Top 40 strutted in groups of four sporting black-themed cocktail fashions (presumably also designed by Ashley Lauren). Then, the hosts announced the next cut to a “Top 12”, including the winner of a new challenge created for the Top 40, the “Digital Challenge”. Basically it’s like a Multimedia challenge but the contestant updates her page on the Miss World website to engage her fans, and the best performer gets an automatic ticket to the Top 12. But as it turns out, it was announced there was a tie and the Top 12 became a Top 13. As in recent editions, after each semifinalist was called out there would be a chit-chat which supposedly would determine who would advance further to the finals.
Miss World always wants to emphasize its charity work, so after the Top 13 were interviewed, they presented video highlights from their BWAP Gala back in December. Then, Brock Pierce and Crystal Rose Pierce stepped onstage, not only to reiterate the virutues of BWAP, but to present part of the proceeds raised from the gala to three worthy female-led Puerto Rican non-profit organizations: Fundacion Alas A La Mujer (helping victims of gender-based violence), San Juan Liga de Arte (providing arts education assistance to underpriveleged youth), and the Vieques Conservation and Historical Trust (preserving the archeological, cultural, and environmental resources of Vieques, an outlying island off the main Puerto Rico Island). They handed out giant ceremonial checks) to these organizations. Then, Brock Pierce made a speech touting Miss World moving with the times and going into blockchain technology and NFTs
After the ceremony, Peter Andre then talked about how laudable the projects of the six BWAP finalists were, and those finalists walked towards the front of the stage, back in their evening gowns. Peter announced that among the six there would be a winner who would be given the designation of BWAP Ambassador and a fast-track slot into the Final Six. Then, instead of announcing the winner right then and there, he announced a pause for commercial break.
After commercial break, you would presume the announcement would be made, right? Unfortunately, no, as Fernando Allende introduced another pre-taped segment instead, a music video called “Island Girl” featuring some of the contestants in swimsuits. Though there is no swimsuit/beachwear competiion since 2015, it seems the attitude against seeing the contestants in such garb has relaxed a bit, perhaps as a nod to this market’s demand to see pageant contestants in this context. There are a whole host of songs with that title, including a US No. 1 hit by Elton John, so it’s confusing they did not properly credit the artist of this particular song, as it’s definitely not that Elton John hit but a bilingual reggae-infused number. Attempting to Google Search the right artist and recording based on the song lyrics so far has not yielded results.
Supposedly, after all that hullaballoo, the six BWAP finalists would then have to give a live 30-second speech in front of the judges about their projects before the BWAP Ambassador would be announced. Peter already had ENGLAND (Rehema Ruthamia) step forward to do just so until he was prompted by the stage director to nix that due to time constraints and went forth to announce the winner. It exposed that this particular exercise was actually pointless as the winner was already decided beforehand anyway. The official edit on Miss World’s official YouTube channel edited out this awkward moment and instead spliced in 30-second snippets of the six BWAP finalists’ projects. The rest of the Final Six were then also announced.
After the announcement of the Final Six, the final night judges were then introduced. They were:
- Jacqueline Aguilera, Miss World 1995
- Stella Nolasco, fashion designer
- Vanessa Ponce, Miss World 2018
- Brock Pierce, crypto-entrepreneur
- Crystal Rose Pierce, Brock’s wife and tech entrepreneur
- Vincent de Paul, Emmy-winning producer and actor
- Julia Morley, Miss World chairperson
- Peter Thomas Roth, owner of eponymously named cosmetics firm
- Gisele Laronde-West, Miss World 1986
- Patrick Robinson, fashion designer
- Marie Allende, TV and film producer and Fernando’s wife
Here, I have to note the atmosphere of the audience at the Coca-Cola Music Hall–it’s rather unruly, similar to the crowds at Miss Universe 1993 and 2007, both in Mexico. When Brock Pierce and Julia Morley were introduced or when Brock made one of his multiple speeches during the programme, the audience seemed to be booing them. There were isolated screams of “Stephanie!” being heard–so apparently there were some significant amount of support for Stephanie even if supposedly she was disgracefully ousted for the fiasco prior to the final and apparently they want to attack Brock Pierce. Reading the noise in the room, some of Brock’s people then countered with isolated fanatic cheers for him–to be honest, it felt like listening to cult members cheering their master. In the edit at Miss World’s YouTube channel, most of the noises from the “Stephanie camp” were edited out, of course.
In light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they decided to add a segment dedicated to the Ukrainian people, a prayer and candle ceremony. Miss World 1975, Lady Wilnelia Forsyth gave an introductory speech followed by a video from Miss World Ukraine 2016 Oleksandra Yaremchuk, (nee Kucharenko) who gave a prayerful message of peace for her country and countrymen while holding a candle. Brock Pierce came in again to initiate the candle lighting ceremony by giving an impassioned speech about Puerto Rico shining a light for Ukraine, and culminating this segment was the reigning Miss World, Toni-Ann Singh, singing the Celine Dion solo version of the 1998 hit “The Prayer“.*7 Toni is normally considered a great singer (she’s the Talent champion in her year) but I noticed too many sharp notes in her performance that distracted this from becoming a moving moment it was intended to convey. Was it lack of proper rehearsal, or was the range in this song just out of her league, I wonder?
*7 This song was originally recorded by Andrea Bocelli in Italian and Celine Dion in English separately but it was then combined into what is most popularly known as a duet between these two vocal titans.
Since this pageant is celebrating its 70th anniversary milestone, of course there would be a segment dedicated to that. The former queens present were gathered onstage alongside Julia Morley, as they watched a video featuring compiled historical footage of the pageant narrated by Miss World 2018 Vanessa Ponce. It’s expectedly sanitized but at least this milestone was acknowledged. Then the Lady Forsyth made a speech paying tribute to the Miss World chairperson and expressed that the gratitude the queens felt toward her was “never enough”. This then segued to the reigning Miss World singing another song, “Never Enough” by Lauren Allred from The Greatest Showman. I don’t know if Toni was having an off-night as she sounded screechy on this song too–I couldn’t help but compare her to Alyssa Muhlach‘s rendition of the same song at Mister World 2019, as Alyssa did a way better job there.
It’s then time for the final question. It was confusing the sequence of which finalist would answer first, but it was explained during the break that the Final Six picked numbers from 1 to 6 and that’s how they’ll take their turns answering the final question. Supposedly each number corresponds to a judge, but somehow only two judges stepped up to take turns reading the questions: Peter Thomas Roth and Vincent de Paul. Supposedly most pageants create this illusion that the judges themselves compose the questions, but at one point, Peter uttered that he didn’t write the questions being read. Another big blot against the organizers.
After a brief recap of Toni-Ann Singh’s long reign, it was finally time for Julia Morley to announce the results “in reverse order”. And finally, after a tumultuous three-hour programme, the new queen was crowned. I’ll discuss notable Top 40 quarterfinalists and the Top 13 semifinalists in the next section of this essay.
COMING UP: NOTABLE TOP 40 QUARTERFINALISTS AND TOP 13 SEMIFINALISTS
Joseph Vitug's Views 