Miss Barbados 2000 Labels Priyanka Chopra As 'Unlikeable', Says The 2000 Miss World Pageant Was Rigged In Her Favour

On her YouTube channel which has about 35K Subscribers, Leilani posted a video where she gave details how Priyanka was ‘favoured' at the pageant and the show was 'rigged' to let her win.

New Delhi: Leilani McConney, a former Miss Barbados who is currently a YouTuber, has asserted that the Miss World 2000 pageant that Priyanka Chopra won was manipulated. She claimed that Priyanka was a "favourite" contender in the competition, in which she had also taken part. On her YouTube channel which has about 35K Subscribers, Leilani posted a video where she gave details of the ways in which Priyanka was ‘favoured' at the pageant and the show was 'rigged' to let her win.

The video came forward as a consequence of the latest controversy around Miss USA 2022, which has shaken the glamour world. Several Miss USA contenders stated that the competition this year and the outcome was manipulated to crown Miss Texas, R'Bonney Gabriel. As a result of this, instead of going to congratulate Gabriel when she was declared the winner as they would often do, the other contestants chose to leave the platform.

"A lot of the girls felt like it was the organization's plan from the beginning for R'Bonney to win, no matter who else was competing," Miss Missouri, Mikala McGhee, had told Insider and an investigation has been set up since then to get to the bottom of the matter. 

Recalling all that had happened back in 2000, Leilani shared her own experience in the video. She said that Miss World 1999 and Miss World 2000 were both from India and that everything that happened during those years occurred because Zee TV in India was one of the show's sponsors.

In her video, she said, “I literally went through the same thing at Miss World. I was Miss Barbados. The year I went, Miss India won. Mind you, Miss India had won the previous year (Yukta Mookhey), and the sponsor was also ZeeTV, an Indian cable station. Our sashes had ZeeTV on top and then the names of our countries. This is very familiar to me."

She further mentioned that Priyanka Chopra was given special treatment by the organisers because her outfits were better designed, she received food in her room, and her sizable images appeared in newspapers while the other competitors congregated with one another on a beach.

“Priyanka Chopra didn’t even go to rehearsals, and she didn’t go to morning meals. It was brought to her in her bed. Priyanka Chopra had absolute press calls by herself, that nobody else went to. Nobody else in the Asian region, nobody else was ever called for these press calls.", McConney shared in her video.

In addition to all this, she also said that only Priyanka was permitted to wear a sarong during the swimsuit round while others were only in their swimsuits. She goes on further to explain why the sarong had been used by Priyanka and said, “Apparently Priyanka Chopra was using some skin tone cream, to even out her skin tone and it was splotchy. I did not say it was a bleaching cream, it was a skin-tone cream. It didn't work, her skin was blotchy so she did not want to remove her sarong. So during the actual judgment, she is actually in a dress." 

Leilani further added that while a contestant cannot be blamed for getting special treatment, she also personally found Priyanka ‘unlikeable’. “My only problem with Priyanka is that getting to know her in the pageant, she was just unlikeable. And she is Meghan Markle's best friend so go figure," she said.

The video has gone viral and people began commenting as soon as it caught their attention. She is two decades too late, a user commented.

The user further went on to say, "There was a controversy back then over Priyanka taking Mother Teresa’s name as a living person in the year 2000. The Indian channels extensively discussed it. Except for that one error, she did great in all the other rounds. It was said she made up for that one wrong answer with the total points. It comes across like a sour grapes situation crying foul now, Miss Barbados."

With the Tamil film 'Thamizhan', Priyanka made her acting debut after winning the 2000 Miss World pageant. She soon began working in Hindi films and established a name in Bollywood.

Earlier, in 2017, Chopra had spoken about her 2000 win in an interview with Elle. "I do think pageants are subject to a lot of stereotyping, and some of them deserve it too, but my experience with Miss World wasn't like that," she told the outlet. "It was focused on being a woman of substance - how well you'd be able to solve world issues, what kind of orator you are etc."

Priyanka had further added, "It wasn't just about being pretty but being well-spoken and having compassion. At 18 all of those values being drilled into me taught me so much about the world. It gave me confidence and made me feel great about myself."