Miss Universe

To gain participation in Miss Universe, a country needs a local company or person to buy the local rights of the competition through a franchise fee. The fee includes the rights of image, brand and everything related to the pageant. Often the owner of the franchise returns the franchise to the Miss Universe Organization, which resells it to a new stakeholder. The reselling of the franchise from one owner to the next is recurrently common in the history of the event, sometimes for contractual breaches or financial reasons. The number of participants is inconsistent because of the franchising of the pageant paired with problems related to the calendar.

Usually a country’s candidate selection involves pageants in the nation’s local subdivisions, where local winners compete in a national pageant, but there are some countries who opt for an internal selection. For example, from 2000 to 2004, Australian delegates were chosen by a modeling agency. Although such « castings » are generally discouraged by the Miss Universe Organization, Jennifer Hawkins was chosen to represent the country in Miss Universe in 2004 (where she would eventually win the crown). When Australia resumed its national pageant in the following year, Michelle Guy became Miss Universe Australia 2005.

Recent countries that became involved in the pageant since the 2010s decade include Gabon and Lithuania (2012), Azerbaijan (2013), Sierra Leone (2016), Cambodia, Laos and Nepal (2017), Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia (2018), Bangladesh and Equatorial Guinea (2019), Cameroon (2020). Nepal is the most recent newcomer to place in the semifinals in Miss Universe after making into the Top 10 in 2018, while Botswana remains the most recent first-time entry to ever win Miss Universe on its debut year (in Mpule Kwelagobe in 1999), and Angola is the most recent country to obtain its first ever national win in Miss Universe (in Leila Lopes in 2011).

Cultural barriers in the swimsuit competition have prevented some countries from participating, while others like Mozambique have not participated because of the prohibitive cost of the event. The Miss Universe has historically proven popular in regions like the Americas, Africa and Asia, especially in countries like U.S.A., Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, South Africa, Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand, all of which have appeared in the semifinals multiple times in the last decade.

As of 2021, only two countries have been present at every Miss Universe since its inception in 1952: Canada and France. Since its inception, Miss Universe strictly prohibits age fabrication, and all contestants are not allowed to be pregnant throughout the entire competition (and for winners, up to their reign). This posts a problem, however, for several European countries, which allow 17-year-old contestants to compete in their pageants. Since Miss Universe’s minimum age is 18, national titleholders often have to be replaced by their runners-up or another candidate. In recent years, virtually all Miss Universe candidates are required to be at least university degree holders or working professionals from their onset of stints in their national pageants.

Beginning in 2012, openly transgender women were allowed to compete, as long as they won their national pageants. Six years after this rule went into effect, Angela Ponce of Spain became the first openly transgender candidate to compete in the contest, in the 2018 edition. In 2019, Swe Zin Htet became the first openly lesbian woman to compete in Miss Universe. Spain’s Patricia Yurena Rodríguez is currently the highest-placed LGBT member at Miss Universe, placing second to Venezuela’s Gabriela Isler in 2013, but did not come out until years after the competition.

Throughout the history of Miss Universe, the main contest has varied widely in terms of annual scheduling, though it has consistently been held over a two-week period in the -ber months of the year since 2017. From the 1970s through the 1990s, the pageant was a full month long, allowing time for rehearsals, appearances, and the preliminary competition, with the winner being crowned by the previous year’s titleholder during the final competition.

According to the organizers, the Miss Universe contest is more than a beauty pageant, though they are expected to participate in swimsuit and evening gown competitions. Women aspiring to become Miss Universe must be intelligent, well-mannered, and cultured. If a candidate is unable to perform well during the question and answer round, she is often eliminated.

Normally, the placements of the finalists are determined by a ranked vote, where each judge ranks each of the final candidates (3 in 2019), with the contestant posting the lowest cumulative score (thus often, but not necessarily always, the contestant with the most number one votes) becoming the winner. If there is a tie, the higher semifinal scores become decisive. In the previous editions, the results of the preliminaries are cleared for the final and the competition resumes with the finalists.

The winner then signs a contract with the Miss Universe Organization that can last from seven to eighteen months and becomes the Miss Universe of the year of the competition in question (the contests for 2014, 2016 and 2020 were held in 2015, 2017 and 2021, respectively). In some years the competition is advanced or delayed. The new Miss Universe takes office immediately and takes on a public cause in which she becomes the ambassador for a year to spread messages about the control of diseases, peace, and public awareness of AIDS (though the organization’s more recent humanitarian works have included various causes such as the rights of women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community). Aside from the job, the winner also receives a cash allowance for her entire reign, a New York Film Academy scholarship, a modeling portfolio, beauty products, clothes, shoes, as well as styling, healthcare, and fitness services by different sponsors of the pageant. She also gains exclusive access to events such as fashion shows and opening galas, as well as access to casting calls and modeling opportunities throughout New York City. Between 1996 and 2015, the winner is given the use of a Trump Place apartment in New York City during her reign, which she shares with the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA titleholders.

If the winner, for any reason, cannot fulfill her duties as Miss Universe, the 1st runner-up takes over. This protocol has happened only once as of 2021, when Panama’s Justine Pasek succeeded Russia’s Oxana Fedorova as Miss Universe in 2002 after the latter’s dethronement later that same year. Aside from the main winner and her runners-up, special awards are also given to the winners of the best National Costume, Miss Photogenic, and Miss Congeniality. The Miss Congeniality award is chosen by the delegates themselves. In recent years, Miss Photogenic has been chosen by popular internet vote (the winner used to be chosen by media personnel covering the event).

All the contestants compete in a preliminary round of judging (called the « Preliminary Competition ») where the field is narrowed to a select number of semifinalists. This number has fluctuated over the years. The first Miss Universe pageant had ten semifinalists. For the next two years, the number of semifinalists grew to 16. In 1955, the number dropped to a stable 15, which remained through 1970. In 1971, the number was reduced to 12. That number was further reduced to 10 in 1984. This lasted until 2003, when the contest reinstated the Top 15. This selection continued to be the norm until 2015, except in 2006 and 2011 to 2013. In 2006, 2018 and 2019, there are 20 semifinalists (with 2018 currently featuring the most competing contestants overall). The group was expanded to 21 semifinalists in 2020, the highest number of spots in the first cut so far in the pageant’s history.

From 2011 to 2013, there were 16 semifinalists, 15 chosen by judges and one chosen through Internet votes. In the 2016 edition, there were 13 semifinalists – 12 chosen by judges panel during the evaluation phase period to the preliminary night and one chosen by Twitter and Vodi app. In 2017, 16 semifinalists were selected from 4 different groups each hailing from a different region in the world – Africa & Asia-Pacific, Europe, The Americas – and a wild card group (which was composed of all the other candidates who did not qualify in their respective continental competitions. In this group, there was also the Miss Internet). In 2018 and 2019, this number rose from 4 to 5, totaling 20 semifinalists. In the 2020 edition, the regional selection was removed. 20 semifinalists were chosen by judges and 1 through Internet votes on the Miss Universe and Lazada app, totaling 21 semifinalists (highest number of spots in the first cut so far in the pageant’s history). The last time (before 2020) there was no regional selection was in 2016.

In the early years, the contestants were judged in swimsuit and evening gown only. The contestants are also judged based on on a variety of issues that vary from posture at events or interviews to your presence on social networks. The summit of the contest is the grand televised final that is held each year in a different international city, in which the semifinalists are known and progressively advance to the final stage of the questions. In this last stage, the runners-up are named and the winner is crowned as the new Miss Universe. Prior to the coronation night, the contestants also compete in a preliminary interview round in a one-on-one meeting with each individual judge (mostly closed-door sessions). The live interviews round for the semifinalists became a separate segment in 2001, and was reinstated to introduce the semifinalists between 2016 and 2019.

The 2018 edition marked the first time that the Miss Universe pageant included the live opening statements after the semifinalists have been announced, to be included in the overall results in determining the winner of the competition. The 2019 edition marked the first (and so far, only) time ever in Miss Universe pageant’s history that the remaining finalists are required to deliver their live closing statements, to be included in the overall results, right before the announcement of the winner of the competition.