Their mantra is “beauty with a purpose”. But the organisers of the Miss World pageant have been accused of something altogether uglier: being “vindictive and very bitter” towards a contestant who left over claims she had been used as window dressing.
The reigning Miss England, Milla Magee, said she agreed to take part in the 2025 Miss World pageant because she believed it would be a platform to promote her campaign to have CPR included in the school curriculum. But she said the reality was very different.
She left before the grand final in India on Saturday, saying she felt she was being exploited and claiming she and the other women felt they had been provided as entertainment for investors as a “thank you”.
Miss World organisers responded with a statement in which they referred to “false and defamatory statements” that they said were “completely unfounded and inconsistent with the reality of her time with us”.
The organisation’s chief executive, Julia Morley, went further in an interview with the Hindu newspaper, in which she accused Magee of leaving because she “believed she didn’t stand a chance in the competition”.
On Saturday, Magee said: “What Julia said was vindictive and very bitter. And it was a ridiculous statement. I did not leave because I thought I was not going to win. I left because I wanted to stand for what I believe in and it didn’t align with my values. And I would hate for another young girl to go into this system after watching me this past year and have to experience the same.”
Magee said there were a “lot of tears behind the smiles” at the Miss World event in Hyderabad and she was unwilling to “promote a lie”. She said that while the pageant purported to be about “beauty with purpose”, she found it to be about “wearing different ballgowns every day and what you look like”.
She said: “I felt like I’ve been fed a false narrative of this system that promotes ‘beauty with a purpose’, that’s supposed to be about advocacy and what you champion for. And I thought, right, this is a real good opportunity for me on a global stage to be able to talk about [my campaign] Go Far with CPR. This isn’t about me standing on the stage, this isn’t about what I wear. It’s not about what I look like.”
Instead, Magee claimed she found she and the other contestants were there more to look pretty and to entertain guests, with only limited opportunity given to promote their causes. In one instance, she alleged, a man she could not identify walked up to her and said: “Next time I’m in London or England, hook me up,” leaving her feeling uncomfortable.
Magee also said she felt Miss World had exposed her to anger from its backers by posting its statement on social media for them to comment on – failing, she said, in its duty of care to her.
Nevertheless, she said, she had been “inundated” with messages from women who had taken part in pageants “saying how they felt the exact same”.
She called on the organisation to modernise, saying: “They have a big responsibility to acknowledge what I’ve said, acknowledge and listen to the reasons of why I left, to not just so quickly and irresponsibly put out a statement to say it’s because I didn’t think I was going to win.”
Miss World has been contacted for comment.
