Report speculates Miss Universe mishap a publicity stunt

Monday morning's mix-up at the Miss Universe pageant, in which Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutierrez was crowned the winner instead of the actual winner – the Philippines' Pia Wurtzbach, may not have been an innocent mistake, a Washington Post story speculated.

According to the WaPo's story “Was Steve Harvey’s Miss Universe mix-up a publicity stunt? Conspiracy theories begin”, the mistake could have been staged to create publicity for the beauty contest.

Among the evidence presented to substantiate the “conspiracy” was the Miss Universe’s Snapchat posting, which showed pageant host Steve Harvey reading “Miss Universe – Colombia” on the teleprompter. The snap was screen-grabbed by Twitter users and news organizations:

Teleprompter was wrong. Yes he had a card, but we all know the card is just for show... from #MissUniverse snapchat pic.twitter.com/afjxgDy2Sa

— Taylor Ramsey (@Taylornramsey3) December 21, 2015

But why bother? Does the Miss U really need publicity? Isn't it the most famous of all beauty contests? Surely everyone would have been paying attention.

Apprently not. Given that the pageant was in competition with football game-broadcasts in the US, the pageant needed to pull off something spectacular to trump the opposition.

Also, pageant host Steve Harvey has a syndicated talk show, and the Miss U-snafu would be perfect fodder for it.

The WaPo story, which did not contain responses from either the Miss Universe organizers nor from Harvey, also quoted speculation on the Twitter-verse that the mistake had former-pageant owner Donald Trump's fingerprints all over it.

Trump himself suggested on Twitter that the foul-up would not have happened during his ownership.

Very sad what happened last night at the Miss Universe Pageant. I sold it 6 months ago for a record price. This would never have happened!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2015

But whatever the motive, the mishap ended up turning #MissUniverse2015 into the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter, and something for everyone to chew on for weeks to come. — Trisha Macas/DVM/BP, GMA News