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Shortly after Victoria Kjaer Theilvig was named the new Miss Universe on Saturday, she sat down for a press conference with the pageant's CEO, Anne Jakrajutatip.
Theilvig is an accomplished dancer, beauty entrepreneur, and mental health advocate who uses her platform to share her story about overcoming abuse. But when a reporter asked Jakrajutatip about the evolution of the Miss Universe pageant, she fixated on Theilvig's looks.
"Evolution?" the CEO asked, her eyes widening as she sat alongside Theilvig in a clip of the interview posted on Instagram by the pageant blog @roadtomissusa. "Evolution? We have blonde and blue eyes, so we're coming to the ultimate evolution already. We don't need any more evolution here. We already got the best here."
However, last year, Jakrajutatip said she would create a diverse pageant "for all women around the world."
Some critics within the pageant world said this is the latest example that Jakrajutatip's promises for Miss Universe may only be skin deep.
Representatives for Miss Universe and Jakrajutatip did not respond to a request for comment.
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Jakrajutatip was in the audience at Miss Universe 2018 when Angela Ponce became the first transgender woman to compete.
It had been six years since Donald Trump, who owned Miss Universe from 1996 to 2015, overturned a decision by the organization to ban women who weren't biologically born female.
"I stood up and applauded for her. I cried, and she also cried on the stage," Jakrajutatip, who is transgender, told Them during a June 2023 interview.
"That moment, I thought, 'This is it. This is a pageant I can turn into a platform, and it must be a women's empowerment platform,'" she added.
Jakrajutatip echoed these sentiments in a statement to Business Insider after she acquired the Miss Universe brand — which oversees all competing countries, including Miss USA — in October 2022.
"We seek not only to continue its legacy of providing a platform to passionate individuals from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and traditions but also to evolve the brand for the next generation," she said.
The following year, Jakrajutatip announced that women over 28 could compete for the first time in the pageant's history. It followed a rule change that allowed married women and mothers to enter the competition.
"From now on, it's going to be run by women, owned by a trans woman, for all women around the world," Jakrajutatip promised in her first speech on the Miss Universe stage.
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Behind the scenes, Jakrajutatip appeared to say something very different.
In an October 2023 video obtained by BI, the CEO told her staff that diverse pageant contestants "can compete, but they can't win," calling it a "communication strategy."
In a February statement on her Facebook page, Jakrajutatip said she was instead discussing a potential Miss Universe reality show rather than the competition.
When asked to comment on the video amid BI's investigation into Miss Universe and Miss USA in July, a Miss Universe spokesperson said that the organization remains committed to "the core values we have diligently defended over the years, promoting inclusion, transparency, and integrity, which will not be swayed by unfounded allegations."
A month after the video was recorded, the 72nd Miss Universe pageant was held. For the first time, a trans contestant, a plus-sized contestant, and a mother all made it to the top 20. None of them won.
There were more historic firsts at Saturday's pageant: the first contestant with vitiligo, the first to wear a hijab, and the first 40-year-old. None of them placed in the top 30.
There have been subtle shifts in the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants since Jakrajutatip took over the organization.
The contestants are no longer asked questions about hot-button social issues. Their philanthropies are rarely mentioned, and there have been more controversies.
Jakrajutatip shocked pageant fans when, on October 24, she went on an Instagram Live with Miss Universe's president advisor Osmel Sousa — who once told The New York Times that inner beauty "was something that unpretty women invented to justify themselves" — and began judging the photos of the 125 women competing this year.
In some clips reposted on TikTok, the two can be seen making faces, laughing, or grimacing at certain contestants.
Jakrajutatip and Miss Universe president Raul Rocha — who became a co-owner this year after Jakrajutatip's company sold 50% of its shares to him amid ongoing financial struggles — also endorsed comments by Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk praising Theilvig's appearance.
"Biological & objectively attractive women are allowed to win beauty pageants again. WE ARE SO BACK," Trump Jr. wrote in a message on X on Monday, which Jakrajutatip and Rocha posted on their Instagram stories.
Representatives for Sousa, Rocha, Trump Jr., and Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
Jakrajutatip also shared a screengrab on her Instagram grid of a message that Musk had posted to X on Monday. It featured a picture of Theilvig with the headline: "Breaking: Internet Stunned After an Attractive Biological Female Human of Healthy Weight Wins Miss Universe Pageant."
Theilvig shares many similarities with every past Miss Universe winner: She is cisgender, under 29, unmarried, without children, and not plus-sized.
The most historic part of her win is that she's the first contestant from Denmark to take the title, joining a group of recent winners who hail everywhere from Nicaragua and India to the USA and South Africa. Theilvig is also the first blonde to win the title in 20 years.
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While the Miss Universe leaders have been pleased with recent attention from Musk and Trump Jr., their endorsement hasn't gone unnoticed in the pageant community.
Alyssa Klinzing, who won Miss Kansas Teen USA in 2013 and Miss Kansas USA in 2019, told BI she withdrew from a judging panel for Miss Houston USA — the largest local pageant in the US — because she could no longer support the organization.
"The more I sat with it, the more I realized I would not enter this pageant today," she said. "There are people who want to do good in this industry, but they're being overshadowed by people who are treating us like we're Barbies, like the contestants are dolls without real feelings."
"If I'm not willing to do it myself, there's no way I can, in good faith, sit on a judging panel and pretend to be excited to select a representative to potentially go to Miss USA and Miss Universe," Klinzing added.
