'Dethroned' beauty queen says she returned crown after body-shamed, forced to 'buy tables'
Ms Sangeetha S. Sangar was crowned Mrs Asia Worldwide in November 2024.
A year later, the organiser announced on social media that her title has been withdrawn.
In a Nov 25 statement on its Facebook page, Lumiere International Pageantry said that Ms Sangeetha as well as Ms R. Abigail Jayanthi, who was Mrs Singapore Global, were dethroned for "serious breaches".
Chief among them, Lumiere accused the two women of starting a competing company called Prestige Pageants and using their titles to promote their company.
This breached a clause in their contracts with Lumiere prohibiting titleholders from joining or organising other competitions during their reigns.
The company added that Ms Sangeetha also further failed to fulfil her contractual obligations by deciding at the last minute not to compete in the designated international pageant despite prior arrangements.
In response to a Stomp query, Ms Sangeetha said: "Nobody dethroned me."
She had returned her crown and sash in a paper shopping bag in July. She explained why: "They took $20,000 from me and harassed me.
"I had to pay for my 'national costumers', the entry fee, which was not in the contract. They forced me to buy the tables. If we didn't buy, they treated the queens very badly and even with the talent, we can't win the title. Who buys more tables and invest more money is the one will win."
And although she didn't know it at the time, when Ms Sangeetha first joined the pageant in August 2024, she was pregnant.
"They were forcing me to do the pageant while I was pregnant," she claimed.
"They body-shamed me because I put on weight during my pregnancy. They said, 'You have all the qualities to be the winner, but due to your weight, we can't choose you as the winner.'"
But she did win.
"During the final in November 2024, I was almost six months pregnant," said Ms Sangeetha, who had gained almost 10kg by then.
When contacted by Stomp, a Lumiere International Pageantry spokesperson denied Ms Sangeetha's allegations.
"First, the banquet tables were bought at her own decision as she had family members who wanted to come and support her. At that point of time, she decided to purchase the tables to get her supporters in," said the spokesperson.
"Second, there was no body-shaming at all from our company. When we knew she was pregnant during her Mrs Singapore competition, our company was very worried for her and constantly checking in with her as we did not want her to be too tired from standing in her heels, but she still proceeded at her own free will."
The spokesperson added that Ms Sangeetha and the company were on "very good terms" after her win – at first.
So what happened?
"She told us a mere one month plus before the international competition that she did not want to participate after all the preparation and the national costume, which she chose the design of, were done," recounted the spokesperson.
"This was a breach of contract. However, we valued our relationship and told her if that was the case, we needed to have her return her crown and sash to allow us to pass them to the next person who would succeed the title."
But that wasn't all.
"After the supposed international competition, we noticed that she had contacted a few of our pageant queens to defame our company and posted defamatory remarks on social media. She also formed her own pageantry and used our queens and contacts for her company," said the spokesperson.
"Furthermore, they used our branding and title to form this pageant company. Even the photo of her as 'director' on her website is of her during our pageant.
"This is misleading the public and hence, we made the decision to publicly dethrone her."
