It's Pageant Chaos in Thailand! Miss Universe Contestants Stage a Mass Walk-Out After the Executive Director Calls One 'a Dumbhead.'

Hector Vivas. Getty Images.

As you might imagine, in a cosmos that's 93 billion light years wide and contains 2 trillion galaxies with approximately 100 billion stars each, selecting one woman to be Miss Universe is rarely easy. 

Granted, as Dante pointed out, last year's pageant wasn't all that much of a challenge:

But most of the time, finding the one woman in the observable universe worthy of wearing the crown and sash is an enormous undertaking. And the one going on right now might be the most difficult one of all. In fact, it's been a shambles:

NY Post -  Miss Universe contestants barged out of a pre-pageant event as they protested an executive who called one contender a “dummy” and ordered her removal during a heated exchange caught on camera.

Nawat Itsaragrisil, an executive director of Miss Universe Organization, berated Miss Mexico, Fátima Bosch, in front of her fellow beauty queens after she didn’t participate in a social media shoot, claiming she had “no respect.”

Itsaragrisil, a Thai businessman tasked with overseeing the pageant in his home country, confronted the elegantly dressed participants during the annual sash ceremony on Tuesday, questioning why some didn’t take part in a sponsorship shoot. …

Itsaragrisil then directly accused Bosch, asking her to stand and explain her absence.

“Mexico, where are you? He asked, prompting Bosch to out herself. “I heard you’re not going to support everything about Thailand, is that true?” …

The tense exchange lasted for four minutes before Itsaragrisil called Bosch a “dummy,” sparking fury from the women.

“I still keep talking to everybody, why you still stand up to talk to me,” Itsaragrisil questioned Bosch.

“Because I have a voice,” she said. “You are not respecting me as a woman.”

Itsaragrisil, unable to quiet his opposer, called for security to take her out of the room as the rest of the contestants bemoaned the decision.

Here's the video. I haven't a clue what the livestream numbers were like. But I suggest that any pageant that plans on having its execute director stand up in front of the contestants and tell them they're morons who need to shut their pie holes because a man is talking? Let us know ahead of time. Because that would be appointment viewing. This is infinitely more entertaining than watching them strut around the stage dressed in stereotype costumes from their native lands or whatever:

… talking! I’m still talking!” 

Moments later, he called for security and the room fell silent. 

Then she walked out. 

And one by one, the other women followed. 

A beauty pageant just became a rebellion. 

Amazing. Every bit of it. The finger wag. The "I'm still talking." Followed closely by "I'm still talking to everyone, why do you stand up to talk to me?" If I tried to utter any one of these to the women in the Thornton family, I'd pull back a bloody stump where the arm attached to that finger used to be. And they presumably love me. But this hotel ball room filled with beauty queens has no such affection for Nawat Itsaragrisil. And he was maybe one sentence away from telling Fatima Bosch to shut her yapper and make him a sammich, or he'll show her what that mouth is for. 

But instead, he called for security. Like they're supposed to come in a haul Miss Mexico away with her petite hands ziptied behind her perfectly shaped backside. And the audible gasp from the crowd as they went into full-on insurrection is sweet music. This is like Les Mis, but with the most beautiful woman from each country instead of dirty French peasants. 

The aforementioned blond haired, blue eyed, perfect reigning champion with a name like a piece of IKEA furniture walked out in solidarity with her pageant sisters:

… and uprising was complete. 

But the best part of all of this, by far, was Nawat Itsaragrisil's reaction to their reaction:

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I hurts me to see a grown man cry like this. From laughing at him while he watches the fortune he shelled out for this vaporize before his eyes.

By way of perspective, 200 million baht is just under 6.2 million US dollars. Which is an investment that might entitle some business owners in some countries to talk to their female employees like the warden in a 1980s movie about a women's prison. But boy oh boy oh boy, did he pick the wrong audience for that business about "dumbhead" and "I'm talking." These women didn't fight and claw their way through a mountain range of local pageants, regional pageants, national pageants, just to fly to Thailand and get talked down to by this crybaby because he threw a bunch of bahts around. 

So thank for this, contestants. The world can't wait to see how this fiasco turns out. Just know that you make the pageant world proud by generating some actual buzz around this shitshow.