Forty minutes into her reign as Miss Universe, Miss Puerto Rico, Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza, collapsed during a post-pageant news conference on Sunday night.
Pageant officials immediately said Mendoza was all right and had fainted.
"She's OK. She's fine," pageant representative Lark Anton said. "She got dizzy. Its very hot up here. Her dress is tight -- as you could see it was beaded and heavy. She passed out."
PHOTO: AP
Anton said Mendoza "had plenty to eat today," when pressed for the beauty queen's condition before she fainted at the center of the stage at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, where she had become the 55th Miss Universe less than an hour earlier.
Mendoza attended the pageant's Coronation Ball after recovering from her collapse, according to guests.
The 18-year-old Puerto Rican beauty queen was named Miss Universe 2006 over runner-up Miss Japan, Kurara Chibana, 24. Second runner-up was Miss Switzerland Lauriane Gillieron, 21.
The youngest of the five finalists, Mendoza appeared radiant as she waved to photographers several minutes before collapsing.
Having lingered on stage, Mendoza was leaning on some assistants when her face fell to her chest, her new tiara atop her head. Tottering on high, spiky heels, she appeared to lean in this fashion for about 10 seconds before collapsing in the arms of pageant assistants.
She was rushed offstage while the organizer of a post-pageant press conference called for aid.
Within a minute, Anton said Mendoza was fine and had merely fainted.
During her news conference, Mendoza said she would carry out the work of the Miss Universe Organization, which is to work to help those with HIV/AIDS.
Meanwhile Indonesia's Miss Universe contestant may face indecency charges after a hardline Muslim group reported her to the police, a lawyer said yesterday.
The women's chapter of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) reported Miss Indonesia, Nadine Chandrawinata, to the Jakarta police over her appearance at the pageant, said Sugito, who goes by one name only, head of the front's legal counsel.
"We are reporting her and several others involved in her participation in the Miss Universe pageant, for intentionally and openly engaging in indecency," Sugito said, adding that lawyers for the group filed the complaint on Friday.
"Her vulgar appearances at Miss Universe is an insult to Indonesian women," Sugito said, adding that participation in the beauty pageant, which includes posing in a bikini, went against the culture of predominantly Islamic Indonesia.
The FPI also accused Chandrawinata and the others of together, in an organized way, violating a prevailing regulation.
Sugito said that a decree of the education and culture ministry issued in 1984 -- when dictator Suharto was in power -- had banned Indonesians from taking part in beauty pageants.
"We, at the FPI, are concerned. If the law is not respected, what will happen to the country?" the lawyer said.
Under Indonesian law, police are obliged to investigate the complaint and if they deem enough evidence exists to back it up, the case will be taken to court.
Both violations could incur up to six years imprisonment under the country's penal code.
Although the decree technically remains in force, authorities have relaxed the ban since Suharto's downfall in 1998.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS