Miss Universe 2019 host Steve Harvey mistakenly announced Miss Philippines Gazini Ganados as the winner of National Costume instead of Miss Malaysia Shweta Sekhon, giving the audience a throwback to his 2015 hosting mishap—which irks Filipino netizens.
Harvey, following his infamous mix-up after announcing the wrong winner during the Miss Universe 2015—crowning Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutiérrez as Miss Universe instead of Miss Philippines Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach—has been chosen again as this year’s beauty pageant host.
“Earlier this week, all the contestants competed in a National Costume contest,” he began explaining. “Here’s the look at the winner, Miss Philippines…,” while a photo of Miss Ganados was mistakenly flashed on the screen.
However, Miss Sekhon is already standing next to the host, taking the microphone and corrects him, “It’s not Philippines,” Miss Sekhon told Harvey, “It’s Malaysia.”
Harvey claims that the blunder wasn’t entirely his fault as he was reading from a teleprompter.
“Well… let me explain something to you. I just read that in a teleprompter,” he admitted. “You all quit doing this to me. I can read this. They are trying to fix it now. This is what they did to me back in 2015. Played me short like that. This is Malaysia. I really love this national costume of Malaysia. This is crazy.”
While some find the hosting mistake funny, netizens, especially the Filipino fans of the prestigious pageant, are not happy with the slip-up as backlash came pouring in on social media.
I’m sure we can all agree on the fact that Miss Universe needs to move on from having Steve Harvey host their event. That National Costume stunt he pulled severely cheapened the competition; a blatant, egregious insult for all of us Filipinos. That is all. #MissUniverse2019
— Eden V. Sabolboro (@EdenisDSKNKTD) December 9, 2019
#MissUniverse2019 that national costume #natcos joke is really foul. D @IAmSteveHarvey should stop it already with the Philippine-Colombia switching spiels. It’s NOT FUNNY anymore. @MissUniverse
— HF Yambao (@hfyambao) December 9, 2019
Some netizens find the announcement disrespectful as some claimed that the host is making fun of Miss Philippines and is just namedropping the pageant contender to trend again on social media.
It is a huge disrespect that you are making Philippines, a highly respective country, as a source of fun and laughter after this announcement. You lambastedly crossed the limits! 👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻 #MissUniverse2019
— ON (@ohhmario_) December 9, 2019
Using Miss Philippines to trend again, are we? Lol Not included in top 10 but you have to make an issue for the people to talk about it? Wow, that’s just low. #MissUniverse2019 #MissUniversePhilippines
— ɯǝᴉǝɾ (@jei3m11) December 9, 2019
The 62-year old TV personality has been hosting the beauty pageant for the past five years, after his infamous announcement slip-up that resulted in a source of reactions and internet memes.