Miss Colombia for Miss Congeniality?
The Internet has had a field day with Steve Harvey's epic mix-up at Sunday's Miss Universe pageant, in which he mistakenly announced the wrong winner. But the contestants at the center of the gaffe - Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutierrez and the actual winner, Miss Philippines Pia Wurtzbach - have responded with grace.
"Everything happens for a reason, so I'm happy," a teary Gutierrez said backstage, surrounded by a group of fellow contestants who embraced her and yelled "We love you, Colombia!"
In another backstage interview, Wurtzbach, who was crowned Miss Universe after Harvey returned to the stage to say that he'd made a mistake, was basically speechless.
"It's a very non-traditional crowning moment, isn't it?" she said in a conversation with Miss USA. "It's very 2015."
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Wurtzbach said there was absolute confusion after Harvey clarified the mix-up.
"I was confused. I wasn't sure what was going on," Wurtzbach said. "I was hesitating as well to go up front because that could have been a mistake as well."
"I can't help but think of Ariadna," Wurtzbach told ET's Nischelle Turner, who asked if she'd spoken to Gutierrez after the chaos.
"No, because she was crying and then there was a crowd around her, the girls who were comforting her," Wurtzbach said. "I was going to go to her - I was actually very close to her already, but then I decided that maybe it was bad timing to do it now, to apologise to her for what happened, so maybe I'll do that in the future."
Harvey has since apologized for his mistake, both during the telecast and on Twitter, but not everyone has been as forgiving as Miss Colombia and Miss Philippines.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that 1969 Miss Universe winner Gloria Diaz called for Harvey to be fined $100,000 for the error.
In an interview posted to YouTube and the Facebook account of a pageant blog called Missosology, Miss Germany Sarah-Lorraine Riek told an interviewer she was unhappy with the results. "I really couldn't believe it, I was so upset," Riek said, adding that she "was really happy for Colombia - she really deserved it."
When the interviewer asked why she and other contestants surrounded Gutierrez instead of congratulating Wurtzbach after Miss Philippines received the crown, Riek said flatly: "Because none of us voted for Philippines. I'm sorry to say that."
