RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

News of a Venezue­lan na­tion­al win­ning the Miss Grand T&T beau­ty pageant on Sun­day has sparked con­tro­ver­sy on so­cial me­dia.

Milei­dy Mat­er­a­no, of Diego Mar­tin, was crowned win­ner at the end of the pageant, which was held at the Ban­quet and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, Movi­eTowne, In­vaders Bay, Port-of-Spain.

Guardian Me­dia was told that Mat­er­a­no was born in Venezuela and has been liv­ing in T&T for over five years.

She is said to be a busi­ness­woman and mod­el and re­cent­ly ap­peared in pub­lic as “Bar­bie” dur­ing the hype of the pre­miere of the Bar­bie movie in T&T.

Mat­er­a­no was one of 15 fi­nal­ists se­lect­ed for the com­pe­ti­tion on Ju­ly 23 but was on­ly re­vealed in the Grand Re­veal Cer­e­mo­ny on Au­gust 6 at the Lu­na Restau­rant at the Falls (West Mall) in Port-of-Spain.

Hav­ing been crowned, Mat­er­a­no will rep­re­sent T&T at the Miss Grand In­ter­na­tion­al 2023 com­pe­ti­tion in Viet­nam in Oc­to­ber.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, head of the Mar­ket­ing and Pub­lic Re­la­tions team for the pageant, Ker­ry Gob­erd­han, said Grand In­ter­na­tion­al, along with its or­gan­is­er Stolen Pro­duc­tions Lim­it­ed (SPL Pageants), will not be re­leas­ing any in­for­ma­tion as yet re­gard­ing Mat­er­a­no be­ing crowned and the pageant’s rules and guide­lines with re­spect to who can en­ter the com­pe­ti­tion.

Gob­erd­han said their at­tor­neys were work­ing on an of­fi­cial, “le­gal” re­lease and not un­til all con­tracts are signed with Mat­er­a­no will a fi­nalised me­dia re­lease be is­sued.

He al­so not­ed that there will be a live in­ter­view with Mat­er­a­no, where mem­bers of the me­dia will be in­vit­ed to at­tend and ques­tion her.

Mean­while, Venezue­lan ac­tivists Yese­nia Gon­za­lez and Sofia Figueroa-Leon, when con­tact­ed, both ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to Mat­er­a­no.

How­ev­er, many so­cial me­dia users crit­i­cised the or­gan­is­ers for al­low­ing Mat­er­a­no to not on­ly en­ter in the first place but to al­so crown her win­ner.

Sunil Singh took to Face­book to post, “This is an in­sult to our lo­cal women. Too much band­wag­o­nist hun­gry man over here!! This is not about looks, this is about pa­tri­o­tism and coun­try. It is an in­sult to the thou­sands of beau­ti­ful Trinida­di­an and To­ba­go women. You think any Trinida­di­an man or woman could go to Venezuela and win any beau­ty pageant com­pe­ti­tion?? Set a blast­ed sell­outs.”

An­oth­er post by So­nia Verder­ame stat­ed that “All women are beau­ti­ful. How­ev­er, she does not rep­re­sent Trinidad women. Our women are ed­u­cat­ed, vi­va­cious, glam­orous, so­phis­ti­cat­ed and in­de­pen­dent.”

An­oth­er poster said, “If she is al­lowed to en­ter, then she should be able to win.”

Ger­ad Na­gas­sar wrote: “Any race can be Tri­ni, but she is not Trin­bag­on­ian. Such a dis­grace. On the oth­er hand, in sport you don’t have to be Tri­ni or liv­ing in T&T to rep­re­sent our twin is­land in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, but on­ly have Tri­ni roots. She at least liv­ing in Trinidad. My thoughts is if you can’t vote in gen­er­al elec­tions then you not sup­posed to be able to rep­re­sent T&T in any­thing.”