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.
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