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Nigerian wins Miss World beauty pageant
Nigerian Agbani Darego was crowned Miss World, the first Nigerian woman to take the title.
Nigerian Agbani Darego was crowned Miss World, the first Nigerian woman to take the title.
From 93 contestants, Darego, 18, took first place ahead of Zerelda Lee, of Aruba, and Scotland`s Juliet-Jane Horne.
The pageant, hosted by US TV chat show presenter Jerry Springer, was beamed to a projected global television audience of 1.2 billion people.
Before being crowned the new Miss World Darego told reporters that ``Black Is Beautiful.``
There have only been three winners from Africa in more than half a century and two of them were white South Africans, in 1958 and 1974. The third, in 1954, was from Arab Egypt. Miss World had until now been dominated by winners from Europe, the Americas and India and the majority have been white.
Miss Nigeria had promoted herself as wanting to be a computer scientist as well as a super model.
The beauty gala was celebrated in Sun City, a luxury resort of casinos and wild animals known as ‘South Africa`s Kingdom of Pleasure’.
Springer confessed to feeling like a child in a candy store during the two-hour ceremony which mixed glamour, African dancing, rap and a sense of amateur dramatics.
The contest has in the past been condemned as a cattle market replete with gorgeous air-heads that is demeaning to women and still carries the `blonde bimbo` stigma. Criticism of the show reached its peak in the 1970s when enraged feminists stormed the stage and pelted the host, comedian Bob Hope, with flour bombs.
Two decades later, Hindu fundamentalists and feminists staged massive protests when the event was held in India in 1996.
The event goes on undaunted and the number of contestants is still growing, with entries from China and Malawi for the first time in South Africa.
Organisers tried to modernise the event by giving viewers the chance to phone in their votes and even e-mail questions to the hopefuls.
The Miss World contest was founded in 1951 by flamboyant British entrepreneur Eric Morley, who died last year just weeks before the 50th anniversary celebration of the event.
Bureau Report
The pageant, hosted by US TV chat show presenter Jerry Springer, was beamed to a projected global television audience of 1.2 billion people.
Before being crowned the new Miss World Darego told reporters that ``Black Is Beautiful.``
There have only been three winners from Africa in more than half a century and two of them were white South Africans, in 1958 and 1974. The third, in 1954, was from Arab Egypt. Miss World had until now been dominated by winners from Europe, the Americas and India and the majority have been white.
Miss Nigeria had promoted herself as wanting to be a computer scientist as well as a super model.
The beauty gala was celebrated in Sun City, a luxury resort of casinos and wild animals known as ‘South Africa`s Kingdom of Pleasure’.
Springer confessed to feeling like a child in a candy store during the two-hour ceremony which mixed glamour, African dancing, rap and a sense of amateur dramatics.
The contest has in the past been condemned as a cattle market replete with gorgeous air-heads that is demeaning to women and still carries the `blonde bimbo` stigma. Criticism of the show reached its peak in the 1970s when enraged feminists stormed the stage and pelted the host, comedian Bob Hope, with flour bombs.
Two decades later, Hindu fundamentalists and feminists staged massive protests when the event was held in India in 1996.
The event goes on undaunted and the number of contestants is still growing, with entries from China and Malawi for the first time in South Africa.
Organisers tried to modernise the event by giving viewers the chance to phone in their votes and even e-mail questions to the hopefuls.
The Miss World contest was founded in 1951 by flamboyant British entrepreneur Eric Morley, who died last year just weeks before the 50th anniversary celebration of the event.
Bureau Report