Miss Malawi defiant on ‘pageant push’, says no apologies
The country’s beauty queen, Susan Mtegha, has said she cannot apologise for pushing Miss New Zealand, Collette Lochore, on stage at the Miss World in China last Saturday.
Miss Malawi, 24, made her first public speech following the incident, which had its video posted on YouTube and quickly went viral that people called it “The Pageant Push.”
The video showed Mtegha shoving the 18-year-old Miss New Zealand and this sparked accusations from the director of Miss World NZ, Desmond Foulger, saying “It was a very rude and very unprofessional thing to do.”
But writing on her Facebook page Miss Malawi Susan Mtegha, the country’s flag carrier at the 2012 Miss World said: “…I do not apologise for my action because I know I was right.”
“I feel sad that some Malawians would have rather liked to see [me] stand in the back ground over shadowed by someone else and not appear for my close ups, I stood up for myself and that is the truth, it could have happened to any girl,” she explained.
Mtegha further said as bad as it looks all she was doing was moving her contender out of her close up mark.
“She was in a wrong sport [sic] and I asked her to move and when she did not I had to slightly push her over or else I would have missed my close up when Malawi was called.
“Miss World stage directors later on confirmed back stage that I was right by pushing her as this was instructed of us to do over and over during rehearsals,” she disclosed.
Returns Sunday
Meanwhile, Mtegha, who was scheduled to arrive back home on Tuesday but failed because she missed her flight after collapsing at Beijing International Airport just after she checked-in, is still in China.
Nyasa Times has established that Miss Malawi is staying at the Malawian Embassy in Beijing until she gets another flight. This was confirmed by Vitu Kamanga, Miss Malawi office director.
“She is expected on Sunday, 26th [August]. With flights being fully booked, it’s tricky. The embassy staff are being hospitable under the circumstances [and] she says she is doing fine,” Kamanga told Nyasa Times.
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