Her Royal Highness, Queen Victoria is now embodied in Denmark’s Victoria Kjaer Theilvig-Miss Universe 2024. As I’ve seen so many times online, I too will declare, “Es una Barbie!!” So, it seems in recent years particularly with the recent release of the 2023 Barbie movie starring Margot Robbie that blondes are back in fashion, as in reality, they always have been in fashion and Miss World has crowned two successive blonde winners and now Miss Universe has followed suit with Queen Victoria’s win. The anti-blonde sentiment experienced during the past 30 years which hasn’t seen many blonde winners except Australia’s Jennifer Hawkins in 2004 and to a lesser extent, Venezuela’s Dayana Mendoza in 2008 and France’s Iris Mittenaere for 2016. It's the first win for the birthplace of the Little Mermaid and pastry, Denmark! Surprisingly, this is only the 4th European Miss Universe win since 1990 succeeding Norway's Mona Grudt in 1990, Russia's Oxana Fedorova in 2002 who was replaced, France's Iris Mittenaere for 2016 and now Denmark's Victoria Kjær Theilvig. Victoria was actually appointed to represent Denmark. In September 2024, Emma Heyst, who had been crowned Miss Denmark 2024, declined to compete at Miss Universe 2024 due to a lack of preparation. Victoria was subsequently chosen and designated by the Miss Denmark Organization to represent Denmark in Heyst's place at Miss Universe 2024. Kjær Theilvig began competing in pageantry after becoming a contestant for Miss Denmark 2021, ultimately placing as the second runner-up. The following year, she was appointed Miss Grand Denmark and represented Denmark at Miss Grand International 2022 in Indonesia, placing in the top 20. This is also first time that two new countries have won in a row since when Russia won in 2002, later replaced by Panama and Dominican Republic in 2003. Victoria was born on November 13, 2003 in Herlev, Denmark making her the youngest of all Miss Universe winners. She is also the first blonde winner since Australia's Jennifer Hawkins in 2004 although France's Iris Mittenaere in 2016 had hints of blonde hair when she won.
She grew up in a dysfunctional family which struggled with drug addiction, and Victoria herself has been the victim of rape and abuse. Victoria attended Lyngby Handels gymnasium, where she studied business and marketing. Kjær Theilvig afterwards became a professional dancer, and advocated for mental health awareness, animal rights, and entrepreneurship in the beauty industry.
2024 marked the first year that age limits were eliminated so many national pageants saw elderly contestants like 81-year-old Soon-hwa Choi who competed for Korea’s national title going unplaced but winning the best dressed award at her national pageant. 71-year-old Marissa Teijo competed for Miss Texas USA 2024 also going unplaced. The oldest contestant in the history of the Miss Universe pageant so far was Malta’s delegate, 40-year-old, Beatrice Njoya who is also a mother of 3 children and I truly Njoyed her but unfortunately, she did not place among the semifinalists at Miss Universe. Despite several anomaly delegates competing this year like delegates over the age of 28 (the former age limit) and women who were/are married and mothers, we just crowned the same old type of contestant, a single lady who just turned 21 making Victoria Kjaer Theilvig easily the youngest of all the Miss Universe titleholders as Victoria was born in 2003 beating out Sheynnis Palacios-Miss Universe 2023 who was born in the year 2000.
The land of the Mariachi, Mexico served as the host country for the fifth time after hosting in 1978, 1989, 1993 and 2007 but 1993 and 2007 were marred by booing during the telecast due to the Mexican delegate not placing above the American delegate during those years but that was not an issue this year, especially since Miss USA did not place which is an extreme rarity at Miss Universe. There appears to be much less American bias now that the Miss Universe organization is owned by a Thai transwoman, Khun Anne (Jakkaphong) Jakrajutatip and Mexican businessman, Raul Rocha Cantu who has started a headquarters and museum in Mexico City. Unlike last year, it was not announced who will host the 2025 Miss Universe pageant but rumor has it is that it will be held in October 2025 rather than November giving Victoria a slightly shorter reign losing one month and they say there may be an online vote to choose from a list of countries but I can't see that working out since there are huge hosting fees involved. For the first time ever, there was a top 30 this year narrowed down from the largest number of contestants ever in history which was at final count was 125 shattering the previous record of 94 contestants at Miss Universe 2018. The number would have been 129 but Azerbaijan was a no-show, Panama's delegate was disqualified and dethroned for leaving her hotel room posing a security risk, Kosovo's delegate suffered a foot injury during the Gala de las Catrinas event and had to watch from the audience and finally, South Africa's delegate withdrew citing health reasons. South Africa's Mia Le Roux is partially deaf so some speculate this may have affected her ability to compete but some speculate there could be other reasons like some claims that she couldn't follow the choreographer's instructions due to her limited hearing or some believe Mia stepped aside due to the controversy with Nigeria's delegate, Chidimma Adetshina originally withdrawing for Miss South Africa before the countryhop to her father's country of origin in a feat that almost won Chidimma the ultimate crown!
This year, they announced four continental queens of beauty would advance to the top 30 as would the winner of the online vote. The four continental queens were: Europe=Finland, Asia=Philippines, Africa/Oceania=Nigeria and Americas=Peru. The online vote was won by Chile. You will notice though that the only one of these continental winners, Nigeria made the top 5 so I suppose winning those titles only guaranteed a spot in the top 30 but the judges determined how each would rank.'Cause nothin' lasts forever, even cold November Reign??
Don't ya think that ya need somebody?
Well, it looks like that somebody is to be selected at the next Miss Universe pageant which is rumored to be held one month earlier (in October 2025) so gone are the November Miss Universe pageants of which we had four (2024, 2023, 2017 and 2013). November tends to get low ratings but NBC has reported that this year’s Miss Universe pageant ranked as the number 1 entertainment program regardless of language, excluding sports, on Saturday, November 16 across all of broadcast and cable among adults aged 18-49 and the pageant also became the #1 most social program across all television. In the U.S., it was ranked the #1 program in its timeslot regardless of language in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and San Francisco among adults 18-49.
Telemundo’s live coast-to-coast broadcast of the 73rd Miss Universe pageant set a new record for the network last Saturday, delivering 243 million engagements across television, digital, Peacock and social platforms and breaking its own record as Telemundo’s most engaging entertainment event ever, nearly doubling (+96%) the total engagement delivered by the 72nd edition in 2023.
The Miss Universe pageant ranked as the most-watched entertainment special of 2024 on Spanish-language television among total viewers, delivering 2.1 million total viewers, according to Nielsen, outperforming Univision’s Premio lo Nuestro and Latin Grammy’s. The international event, which culminated when Victoria Kjaer Theilvig from Denmark was crowned as the new Miss Universe, also averaged 568,000 adults 18-49 on linear and reached a total of 3.4 million total viewers.
With these amazing numbers, why am I paying $39 Canadian dollars for a VIP Diamond package to watch livestreams of prelims and finals on the Miss Universe YouTube channel when these things should be either freely streamed like last year or even on a major American network like Telemundo’s owner NBC, like it used to be in the good old days?? We’ll settle for the CW even since Miss USA and Miss Teen USA were back on the air on that network earlier this year with prelims livestreamed for free! It’s just so frustrating that pageants aren’t as accessible or as valued as they once were.
Julio Himede who was instrumental in designing last year’s grand stage in El Salvador and he was also credited as production manager for the 2024 pageant in Mexico. They touted this stage as the biggest ever but last year’s seemed bigger to me for some reason. It was nice with the LED lighting and constantly moving scenery and the big figure 8 on the stage was nice but it worked. The show opened with some seductive, haunting imagery of some of the contestants with Sheynnis Palacios welcoming us to Mexico to the exclusive theme song “Mexicana” for this year’s pageant composed by Emilio Estefan and performed by Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas and Brazilian artist Richaelio. There were also 131 mariachi musicians featured on or near the stage and throughout the auditorium which was great and really added to the grandioseness of it all while emphasize the host country, Mexico’s culture and seeing all the delegates dancing along really enhanced this opening number so that aspect of it was great. Then, we cut to a pre-taped parade of nations with each delegate just yelling their countries with the delegates’ names and countries captioned with some slower-paced scenes interspliced showing the delegates enjoying Mexico. The introductory dresses designed by Giannina Azar were sensational. The pageant was held in the CDMX Mexico City Arena, an indoor venue with a capacity for 20,000 people. Supporters inside shouted and waved flags from countries around the world. The gala was hosted by Mario López (who also hosted Miss Universe 2007 which was the last time the pageant was held in Mexico and he also hosted Miss Universe 2020 which was won by Mexico!); Olivia Culpo-Miss Universe 2012 served as host for the third year in a row and she also co-hosted for 2020, served as a backstage correspondent in 2019 and judged in 2015 and the color commentators were Zuri Hall; and Catriona Gray-Miss Universe 2018. I thought all of them did a decent job as they are all very experienced in the pageant realm but this year, there was nothing too memorable really about them. They were just there. I liked the touristy segments showcasing some of the delegates experiencing Mexico like those that visited Guadalajara which is an 8-hour drive from Mexico City (USA, Mexico, India, Turks & Caicos, Thailand and Paraguay). Then we met the judges: Lele Pons, Margaret Gardiner-Miss Universe 1978 who won in Mexico, Nova Stevens-Miss Universe Canada 2020, Camila Guiribitey, Gary Nader, Eva Duringer-Cavalli (1st runner up at Miss Universe 1977 representing Austria and later marrying one of the judges of her year, Roberto Cavalli who passed away in April 2024), Michael Cinco, Fariana, Gianluca Vacchi, Gabriela Gonzalez, Jessica Carrillo, Emilio Estefan. Missing from the original list of judges and also omitted from the program book was Brazilian artist, Romero Britto but no reason was given. Four judges were not present for preliminaries and they were: Gianluca Vacchi, Emilio Estefan, Lele Pons and Gary Nader. Instead, Dr. Juan Carlos Arellano served as a preliminary judge.
How did I do with my predictions? Well, I picked 17 of the top 30 plus 1 alternate (Cambodia) and 1 honorable mention (Bolivia). 11 of the semifinalists missed my list and four of them were in my next tier (Malaysia, Serbia, Nigeria and Japan) but the 7 I missed entirely were: Argentina, Aruba, China, Macau (a debuting country placed for the first time but this one was a major surprise), Nicaragua, Russia, Vietnam. I honestly didn’t expect this many Asians to be honest since the judging panel was so Latin-heavy and the only Asian judge was Michael Cinco who is Filipino and based in United Arab Emirates so he likely would backed Philippines so methinks there may have been other determining factors creating this list of semifinalists like perhaps some intervention from owners Khun Anne and Raul Rocha but did you notice that only 1 of the 9 Asian ladies (Thailand) that made top 30 advanced to the top 12? My 13 ladies that didn't place were: Colombia, Australia, Somalia, Eritrea (Aw, Snit!), Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Jamaica, Italy, Slovakia, Romania, Turks & Caicos and Brazil. What happened to my ladies that didn’t place? Colombia had a great story about losing weight after her father died and she looked incredible in preliminaries so I thought she was a sure thing especially since one of the prelim judges, Fariana is Colombia so I am not sure what exactly happened here. Australia was a great overall candidate who speaks incredibly well and was especially fit given that she started her own pilates fitness program so it was also surprising that she didn’t place. Somalia was originally 3rd runner up for Miss Universe Canada 2024 but was appointed to be Somalia’s first delegate at Miss Universe but Canada placed and Somalia didn’t. Khadija is quite photogenic but despite wearing a burkini for swimsuit, you can see that she didn’t quite have the right body shape and looked shorter with wider hips. Eritrea was a brilliant beauty who recently won Miss Africa USA 2023 but she also wore the burkini hiding the thighs so... Snit happens! None of the burkini girls placed this year compared to Pakistan placing last year. It’s also interesting how body positivity candidates seem to fluctuate from year to year favoring Canada in 2016 and Nepal in 2023 but not favoring Thailand in 2021 and Trinidad & Tobago in 2024... Portugal was great, fun-spirited and had a look reminiscent of Scary Spice/Mel B who co-hosted Miss Universe 2008. Portugal sent its first full black delegate, not counting Ana Wilson in 1982 who is half-black and half-South Asian (thanks, Paulo for this info!), Spain was the second black delegate of that country immediately succeeding their first, Athenea Perez who made top 10 last year but Michelle this year sported many tattoos and despite an incredible gown and an incredible walk, perhaps the legs were too stumpy so it wasn’t enough to place her. Switzerland was a great, fun-loving candidate and a tall blonde but her gown could have been better and she perhaps needed more polish. Jamaica was great all around so this was a shocking omission. I knew there would be surprises so I put Italy in my list thinking she would be one of them as one of the preliminary judges, Austria’s Eva Duringer-Cavalli who was 1st runner up at Miss Universe 1977 married one of the judges of that year, Italian designer, Roberto Cavalli who passed away in April 2024 so I was thinking that would honor him and one of the finals judges, Gianluca Vacchi is also Italian and Glelany was an interesting Italian delegate who was very showy on stage but it was not to be. Slovakia and Romania were both outstanding top model beauties with great bodies but these countries are regularly ignored so I assume they come across as too soft-spoken in interview. Romania is a 33-year-old mother of a 2-year-old daughter. Loredana who was previously Romania's representative at Miss World 2009 going unplaced but later represented Romania at Top Model of the World 2011 and winning that title. Slovakia reminded me of Dua Lipa and I was debating whether or not to include them because they weren’t really getting any outside support but I think they were both placement worthy so I kept them in my list. Turks & Caicos surprised me in prelims as she was really great in national costumes and swimsuit but she did fiddle with her neck-piece on the scarf for her gown yet she had a heartbreaking story about her brother being shot to death so I though Raynae would get a spot but other surprises placed instead! Finally, Brazil was only included at the bottom of my list because other people felt so strongly about her but she was never a favorite of mine as I found her too waifish and her hair reminded me of a 90s Miss America contestant and I’m actually glad she didn’t place because I was right!
Surprises are always to be expected so you really never know how things will play out. I was racking my brain trying to decide to give my win to either Dominican Republic or Cuba but some there has been some commentary online about Dominican Republic staying on stage too long and not following the stage director's instructions and even being the only one to say her name in the intros when the others only said a drawn-out version of their country's name only (which I think is stupid... Let them say both their names and country. You have time...) and some also claim that Celinée had an attitude problem but others claim she is so sweet. I also thought Cuba had powers in having two Cuban judges on the panel and Osmel Sousa (Czar of beauty behind Venezuela's past success) working with MUO as an advisor but both Cuba and Dominican Republic had to settle for top 30 semifinalist spots... The next morning after I had posted my predictions, practically everyone was picking Denmark as their winner and I was like... oh yeah, I see it now and instantly knew Victoria was winning and I picked the wrong “D” country. Why didn't I see it earlier??? To add to this, this is the third year in a row that the delegate I ranked in 10th place in my list ended up winning! I swear I'm not doing this on purpose! It must be some subconscious thing that the winner is a 10 and therefore, I put her 10th on my list??? Not only were USA's R'Bonney Gabriel and Nicaragua's Sheynnis Palacios 10th on my list for their respective years but also South Africa's two recent winners, Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters in 2017 and Zozibini Tunzi in 2019 also were 10th on my list! I guess we have to watch who ends up 10th on my list for next year!! (But I probably jinxed it by mentioning it...) This is reminiscent of 2004 and 2013 to 2015 when the delegates I ranked in 5th place all won.
With the age limit removed for this year and marriage restrictions or having children removed last year, we saw several delegates over the age of 28 placing this year (Argentina, Aruba, Cambodia, Canada, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Nicaragua, Peru, Puerto Rico, Serbia). I originally thought there were 16 mothers but learned later that the delegates from Armenia and Equatorial Guinea are the two mothers I originally missed in my first round prethoughts so of the 18 mothers competing this year, we had Nigeria, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Cambodia, Egypt with the married placing contestants being: Canada (a former Mrs. Universe 2015 who has been twice married but does not have children), Cambodia, Egypt but Puerto Rico is divorced, and the first contestant with vitiligo (Egypt) earned her country's first placement ever!
The top 5 conveniently consisted of one delegate from each continent. Is that convenient??? The top 5 were: Nigeria (Africa), Mexico (North America), Denmark (Europe), Thailand (Asia) and Venezuela (South America). Yes, we should always remember that representation matters! It was now time for the judge’s questions. Boy, these high-definition cameras really bring out the facial flaws and moles, don’t they?? Nigeria picked Michael Cinco who asked, “What is more important? Being liked or being respected and why?” Nigeria answered, “I feel like it’s being respected. We live in a society where we often don’t feel respected because of who we are and I feel like when you respect yourself, you respect others around you and respect is really important. Thank you.” This was an decent answer. Mexico picked Camila Guiribitey who asked, “When something bad in happening in your life, what gives you power to keep going?” Mexico replied (in English in front of the Mexican audience... I’m shocked but not that shocked because I know she wants to try to impress the judges), “To keep going in my life is my mom. Through [his] fight of cancer, right now, I’m feeling very happy to be here to represent [his] resilence, [his] perseverance and [his] (giggles) discipline about all this illness. I want to invite you to always feel your dreams and as a powerful woman say, Diana de Gales (Diana, Princess of Wales), I want to be the queen of the people's heart. (giggles)" Okay, many things with this messy answer. Uh, your mom’s a woman so you use ‘her’, not ‘his’, but I know pronouns get mixed in translation. I guess we should all use they/them pronouns from now on, right?? And, no giggling when you talk about your mom having cancer! I probably would have handed a 4th runner up placement for this answer but we have to keep the audience from booing as long as possible so 2nd runner up will do... Oy. Next, Denmark picked Lele Pons who asked, “How would you live your life differently if you knew nobody would judge you?” Denmark replied, “Thank you for the question. Hola, Mexico! (sweetly and cutely just like Riyo Mori of Japan did when she won in 2007 also in Mexico. Yes. That is good. Be Riyo. Positive, patient and happy.) I would never change how I live my life. We learn from our mistakes. We learn every day. We learn something new and we got to take that. We got to take that and bring it to the future. And that's why I live each day by each day. And I just got to stay positive. And yeah, so no, I will not change nothing.” Some English issues with this answer too. It’s ‘I will not change ANYthing’ so we avoid the double negative but I guess the confident, preachy delivery sold it. Thailand picked Gary Nader who asked, “What qualities must someone have to be a truly successful leader for you?” Thailand answered, “A quality that a leader should have for me is empathy because no matter how good you are, no matter what kind of education you are, in the end, you need empathy to care about your people, to care about their well-being. And not only a leader. I believe that everyone in this world needs to have empathy among each other. That's how we can unite.” Also, some English issues here (it’s what kind of education you HAVE) but an excellent answer overall from Thailand. Finally, Venezuela picked Margaret Gardiner who asked, “Describe the ideal woman of today and what you have in common with her?” Venezuela answered in Spanish, “Good evening, Mexico. My ideal to was sharing and celebrating all the 127 women who were here on stage. Leaving behind the barriers, leaving behind the differences, and uniting, giving a message to the world of respect, love and unity. Because that's how the world is built.” The translator said in English, “Good evening, Mexico. My ideal moment today has been sharing with 127 amazing women from all across the world leaving behind our differences and sending the world a message of respect, love and union because that’s the way the world is built.” I think something got lost in translation here and maybe she misheard ideal woman as ideal moment? So, no surprises here that she ended up 4th runner-up as we all knew Ileana wasn’t winning but her answer was nice and well-meaning. This was followed by a video segment of Egypt talked about being discriminated against as a child of 8 years old when she developed lupus and vitiligo and how she overcame it.
Now, it was time for the top 5 to answer the final question, “Miss Universe has inspired generations of women. What is your message to the ones watching you now?” Nigeria answered, “As a woman who has faced adversity, I feel like I have a powerful story. I don’t stand here as Chidimma Adetshina. I stand here as a symbol of hope, a beacon of faith. As someone who has persevered with grace, I believe I have fought for not only myself but for Africa.” Oh boy, does she have a story but too bad it’s too long and complicated to fit into 30 seconds! The judges (or the powers that be) knew. Mexico answered, “As my social project says, say no cyberbullying and cyber harassment. Right now, we are in a huge problem that is social media, and the message that I want to give to the world is to fight, control, and adapt to this new situation with the intelligence, emotional intelligence that we need to have. We need to have this emotional intelligence so we can control that emotions and with that emotions, we can give that message with no fears.” A relevant answer for today but a lot of gaps. Denmark’s winning answer was, “My message to all the world that is watching out there is: no matter where you come from, no matter your past, you can always choose to turn it into your strengths. It will never define who you are. You just gotta keep fighting. I stand here today because I want to change. I want to make history. And that’s what I’m doing tonight. So never give up. Always believe in yourself and your dreams. And that is exactly what you’re going to do. Thank you.” A nice, determined and real answer with the excited preacher effect thrown in. Thailand answered, “One message I would like to give them is to always believe and to always have hope. Working on my project Opal for Her, I work a lot with cancer patients and doctors. We all know that it is a hard thing to overcome this disease, but what I can feel is everyone has hope and everyone believes that tomorrow will be a better day. As long as you believe your power is infinite and as long as you have hope, your spirits and your power will shine. Thank you.” This was a great answer so why the 3rd runner up placement? Why, overall impression of course! We have to remember that most of this is likely pre-determined and the final question is normally only partly taken into consideration for the final ranking. Finally, Venezuela answered through her translator in English, “My message tonight is addressed to the most important persons in the world, not only the women here tonight but across the world. The crown tonight does not only go to the representative of Miss Universe tonight, but the crown goes to every single woman that has earned the respect, love, and visibility for us to be here tonight.” A nice, encouraging message!
This pageant can’t seem to escape controversy in recent years though as on November 21, ABC’s show ‘Nightline’ featured a 3-part series on streaming platform, Hulu called ‘Cracks in the Crown’ which discusses some of the unpleasant behind-the-scenes dealings occurring in both the Miss Universe organization and the recently separated Miss USA organization under the directorship of Laylah Rose. Paraguayan executive, Omar Castarino Montanaro claims he paid Raul and Khun Anne half a million dollars to secure the rights for Paraguay to host the 2025 Miss Universe pageant and he has a letter from Anne to prove this but that they ghosted him after he gave the money and Khun Anne provided a list of 8 countries that are supposedly in the running but Paraguay is not one of them. The 8 countries revealed in a press conference after the pageant are: Argentina, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, India, Morocco, South Africa, Spain and Thailand. I obviously only want Thailand to host 2031 to continue their 13-year-chain of hosting Miss Universe so they can wait another six years. There is a rumor that the winner may be selected by online vote but I think it comes down to who pays the most so a lot of what is being revealed about the disturbing behind-the-scenes dealing and scamming isn’t sitting well with a lot of fans. Miss Universe will forever have a large international following but will the current ownership bring about its downfall? Raul Rocha has been sent recently photographed with Miss Universe and it is giving a bit of a creepy vibe even if it’s perfectly innocent but Victoria seems to be handling it well but shouldn’t she be getting ALL the spotlight and not have the owners being so present? Trump was sort of like this too but maybe not to this extent.
