Miss Egypt slapped Miss Universe 2007, Riyo Mori

Miss Universe 2008 is gaining lots of controversies.

In her blog blog, Ines Ligron, the National Director of Japan wrote an incident about Miss Egypt, Yara Naoum (with picture at left) slapping outgoing Miss Universe 2007 Riyo Mori of Japan.

Mori accidentally stepped on the gown of Yara while they were preparing backsatge for the opening number. According to Ligron, Miss Egypt apologized after realizing it was Mori who got the slap.

These are the exact words of Ines: "Miss Egypt is a real pain in the neck; she slapped Riyo backstage when by mistake she stepped on her dress. Then she was horrified when she realized she just had slapped Miss Universe! LOL She was saying –“I am sorry I did not know that it was you!!”… Riyo told her: “it is okay, but you should not do that anyway to anyone, this is not really nice”. She was mortified."

Ines went on to say that Yara was also confronted by her roommate, Miss Canada Samantha Tajik, to stop smoking in their room.

Here is the words again from the blog of Ines: "Also she shares the room with is Canada and she smokes cigarettes after cigarettes and Miss Canada asked her kindly to pls go outside when she wishes to smoke. She turned around and said: “why? This is MY room?!” Nice girl indeed! Sometimes I wonder why this kind of girl bothers to come here…. "

Ines' blog generated much buzz in almost all discussion boards with some namecalling Miss Egypt.

On the other hand, Youssef Spahi, the National Director of Egypt, denounced what was written in the blog in an  Egyptian discussion board.

Below is the statement copied from the said website.

"The real story behind the gossip:

Miss Egypt Organization (Face To Face) is shocked by the article recently posted on Ines Ligron's blog concerning Miss Egypt Yara Naoum.The National Director, Mr. Youssef Spahi contacted Ms. Naoum immediately after the story appeared on the web and she denied all the allegations. 

We highly suspected that this actually happened because we are constantly in contact with Miss Universe Organization and they wouldn't accept such a behavior from any contestant towards the others, not to mention towards Miss Universe!

In her latest e-mail with Mr. Spahi, Annette Cammer thanked him for sending "such a wonderful girl". Miss Egypt Organization highly suspects the genuienity of the story coming from a source that already spread suspicious rumors about other delegates. We also highly suspect that these are Ms. Ligron’s words as Mr. Spahi personally knows her and knows this is not the attitude of a National Director who already produced a Miss Universe.

So what actually happened?

Regarding the incident with Miss Universe 2007, Riyo Mori, Ms. Noum assured us that this did not happen during the preliminary competition or in the backstage as the article suggests, it happened on the day of the gala dinner almost a week ago! 

“While all the girls were standing in lines outside their rooms getting ready to go down to the gala dinner, Miss Russia stepped on my dress by mistake and I couldn’t turn around, I just kept saying: My dress, my dress! And I leaned on someone behind me trying not to fall on the ground and to my shock that someone turned out to be Riyo Mori! We laughed it out and I apologized to her, of course I didn’t slap her or anyone else, this is not my attitude, absolutely ridiculous! I met Riyo again during the preliminaries and apologized once again, even though knowing I did nothing wrong, but out of courtesy to a Miss Universe titleholder and she was very nice to me and told me to take care because a lot of this will happen in the backstage”

According to this we highly suspect it is Ms. Ligron who wrote the article because although the story bares some truth it wouldn’t come from someone in her position and who is constantly in contact with Ms. Mori, unless that Ms. Ligron is no longer allowed to spend that much time with Riyo as her director or as a friend! 

The second incident with Miss Canada also bares some truth and lots of lies. 

According to the Miss Universe Organization’s Rules and Regulations, contestants should specify if they are smokers or non-smokers before they get to the host country, and Ms. Naoum specified in her application that she is a smoker and so the organizers accommodated her with Miss Canada, who is also a smoker, however she did not specify that in her application. It is also in the Organization’s rules that smoking contestants must not smoke outside their rooms!

“There was no problem with Miss Canada about smoking; she is also a smoker despite not mentioning that in her application! I always smoke in the bathroom only and I’m not a heavy smoker as well, but Miss Canada was not in the mood one day and she told the supervisor who later found cigarettes with Miss Canada herself and the whole thing came to an end, you can ask her yourself, we are good friends after all. It is normal to have such feelings out of stress and I understand what happened, believe me, there are lots of things that happen in the backstage!” said Ms. Naoum.

Again the correct story highly conflicts with what actually happened. It is just funny to read what the blog said about the whole situation.

“Miss Canada asked her kindly to pls go outside when she wishes to smoke. She turned around and said: “why? This is MY room?!” It makes you wonder if Ms. Ligron was actually with them in the room? The organizers are now planning to send a letter to Miss Universe Organization to investigate the incident and as Mr. Spahi was not able to go to Vietnam this year for personal reasons, MUO should not allow such a behavior to occur especially from a respectable National Director.

“I have been training the Egyptian representatives for ten years now, and as far as I know, our girls are known to be some of the most charming girls both on and back stage and there is no way that I would send a girl with such an attitude to Miss Universe even if I think she could win it all simply because she is representing my organization, name and country” said Mr. Spahi."

Ines Ligron's blog is actually generating lots of readers since last year since she is actually one of the few who is reporting behind-the-scene incidents which could not be found in most of the discussion boards.

We'll talk about her more next time.