Drama on stage: Mrs World forcefully removes crown from Mrs Sri Lanka over divorce allegations

Pushpika De Silva, who won the crown denied the allegation and was later recrowned Mrs Sri Lanka
Pushpika De Silva
Pushpika De Silva

In what must have reminded many as a scene from the Hollywood movie Miss Congeniality, a slight scuffle broke out for the crown during the Mrs Sri Lanka pageant in Colombo.

Pushpika De Silva was crowned Mrs Sri Lanka in a ceremony that was captured on national TV in Colombo. However, moments after her victory, the 2019 Mrs Sri Lanka winner and reigning Mrs World, Caroline Jurie, went on stage to announce that De Silva was supposedly divorced, and that she is taking it upon herself to award the crown to someone else. "There is a rule that you have to be married and not divorced, so I am taking my first steps in saying that the crown goes to the first runner-up," Jurie told the audience.

In a video of the pageant that is going viral, Jurie is seen taking the crown off De Silva’s head and handing it to the runner up of the pageant. De Silva is seen walking off the stage as the rest on stage, celebrate.

De Silva in a post on Facebook said she suffered "injuries to my skull" when Jurie "snatched" her crown.

She denied being divorced, although she did acknowledge that she is living apart from her partner for “personal reasons.” In a statement translated from Sinhala, she wrote, “As I write this, I responsibly say that I am not a divorced woman. If I am divorced, I challenge them to submit my divorce papers. So, even though that symbolic crown has been snatched from my head, I would like to inform you that I have already taken the necessary legal action for the injustice and insult that has taken place."

Taking a veiled shot at Jurie De Silva continued that "a real queen is not a woman who snatches another woman's crown, but a woman who secretly sets the other woman's crown!!"

Pageant organizers later confirmed De Silva’s win and re-crowned her as Mrs. Sri Lanka. She will go on to compete in the Mrs. World pageant against candidates from other countries later this year.

“We are disappointed,” Chandimal Jayasinghe, head of Mrs. Sri Lanka World, told a leading media house. “It was a disgrace how Caroline Jurie behaved on the stage and the Mrs. World organization has already begun an investigation on the matter.” Jayasinghe added that that Jurie will be asked to issue a personal apology for her conduct. The official Mrs World Instagram account recognised De Silva’s victory in an Instagram post with her photo.

Video courtesy: Colombo Gazette

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