Pageant host makes huge gaffe, names wrong Winner
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Miss Universe pageant host Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner at the end of Sunday night’s big show in Las Vegas and was forced to make an embarrassing apology.
After announcing Miss USA, Olivia Jordan, as the third runner-up, Harvey initially named Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo, as the night’s big winner, relegating the remaining contestant, Miss Philippines, Pia Alonzo Wurzbach, to the second runner-up spot.
But after Arevalo received the crown and a bouquet of flowers, Harvey announced he had made an error and that Wurzbach was in fact the winner.
A stunned Wurzbach, who had taken her place with the other contestants behind Arevalo, then walked out to center stage. Last year’s Miss Universe, Colombia’s Paulina Vega, then removed the crown from Avrevalo’s head and placed it on Wurtzbach.
With both pageant contestants standing at the front of the stage, the show concluded.
Harvey, who was hosting the contest for the first time, held up the card announcing the order of finishers for Fox network cameras to see up close afterward. He said he re-read the card and noticed it said “first runner-up” next to the Colombia contestant’s name before he asked producers if he had made a mistake. Talking with reporters afterward, Harvey and an executive for pageant owner WME-IMG called it human error.
“Nobody feels worse about this than me,” Harvey said.
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