Alexandria Mills Miss World Win Wrapped in Controversy
BEIJING (LALATE) – Alexandria Mills won Miss World (photos below), not Miss Norway Mariann Birkedal. But after Alexandria Mills won Miss World, news began to cite an alleged controversy behind the scenes allegedly tied to Liu Xiaobo’s win of the Nobel Prize.
Reaction to Alexandria Mills’ win as Miss World was mixed at first. Mills’ win was in Beijing. Weeks earlier, China had denounced Norway’s Nobel Prize award for Liu Xiaobo. Thereafter, his wife Liu Xia was put under house arrest. And while beauty pageant scandals usually concern some photo scandals, generally leaked modeling pictures from the contestants’ previous years, this beauty pageant controversy is wrapped up in politics.
As reported in the New York Daily News today, the British publication the London Daily Mail contends that Miss Norway Mariann Birkedal was favored to win the competition and was allegedly dumping in early round voting because the Xiaobo dispute. Reports the Daily News, “London’s Daily Mail suggests judges may have been pressured by Beijing to give Miss Norway Mariann Birkedal low scores because it is still bitter over the Nobel Peace Prize being given to one of its political prisoners.” When the Daily Mail asked Birkedal about the matter, she responded “I have been very careful with speculating. It is kind of stupid to start thinking that if this or that had not occurred I would perhaps have been Miss World 2010.” The New York Daily News article cites no comment by Mills nor pageant officials.
Alexandria Mills Pictures
Alexandria Mills Photo 1
Alexandria Mills Photo 2
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Previously reported on LALATE, Liu Xia recently learned her husband would be awarded the prize handed out in Oslo, Norway on December 10. Her husband is serving an 11 year prison term for “incitement to subversion” due to a pro-democracy petition. But when Liu Xia went to visit her husband in prison in October, she learned that the Chinese Government will be blocking her travel to Oslo to accept the award for her husband. Hours later, the Chinese Government confirmed that they were in fact keeping Liu Xia under house arrest; she remained unable to walk down the street freely.
The Nobel committee issued the following statement of reaction in October. “We regret the actions they have taken, but I have to say we are not surprised. We stand for a set of principles. A committee can’t just overthrow a government. That is self-evident. We have no such power or intention. We are just five independent members. We take instructions from nobody.”
