The conclusion of Mrs Sri Lanka beauty pageant, held earlier on Sunday, took a shocking turn after the winner Pushpika De Silva, who won the title of Mrs Sri Lanka 2021, title left the stage in tears after the crown was seized from her.
Controversy erupted when a former title holder took to the stage to forcibly remove the crown from the winner’s head and claimed that she was a divorcee and therefore ineligible to participate. A video of the Sunday event opened with the 2019 winner of the competition and reigning Mrs World, Caroline Jurie, speaking to the audience shortly after the winner and runners-up were announced in Colombo. De Silva’s beauty pageant crown was snatched from her moments later after she won the title. Jurie then forcefully took the crown from a stunned De Silva and placed it on the first runner-up. De Silva broke into tears and walked away after thanking the judges. However, organisers declared De Silva the official winner of the pageant after the incident and said that contestants who were “legally married” were allowed to compete. De Silva, in a Facebook post, said she was separated from her husband “for personal reasons,” but they were not divorced. She added that she would have been removed from the competition at the start if she had been ineligible.
The official Mrs. World Instagram account acknowledged De Silva’s victory in a brief post with her photo on Tuesday. The Mrs World series, founded in 1984, is an international beauty pageant for married women. Under the rules of the pageant, contestants must be “married as of the date of entry.”
