Former Miss Barbados Alleges Rigging In Favour Of India at Miss World 2000, Calls Priyanka Chopra 'Unlikeable'

Former Miss Barbados 2000, Leilani McConney, has launched some serious allegations against Priyanka Chopra. McConney, who had also competed in the beauty pageant, said that Priyanka Chopra, winner of Miss India and Miss World 2000, was "rigged." Leilani in the video recalls how Chopra was "favoured" at the pageant and how the show was rigged to let her win. Leilani runs a YouTube channel now, which has around 35k subscribers.

Discussing the most recent controversy around Miss USA 2022, Leilani says in the video that investigations are being conducted and people are being fired as a result, and that this tends to imply that the beauty competition may have also been rigged back then. She claimed that the incident brought to mind her time as Miss World 2000. She went on to say that Miss World 1999 and Miss World 2000 were both from India, and that all this happened when India's Zee TV was one of the show's sponsors during those years.

"I literally went through the same thing at Miss World. I was Miss Barbados, and the year I went, Miss India won. Mind you, Miss India had won the previous year (Yukta Mookhey), the sponsor was also ZeeTV, and Indian cable station. Our sashes had ZeeTV on top and then the names of our countries. This is very familiar to me," she said.

Further, Leilani cited details alleging Priyanka Chopra received favouritism during the pageant. She also shared that Priyanka was provided with better gowns, food was served in her room, and her photos got more coverage in newspapers while the other contestants were bunched together on a beach. She further continued saying that Chopra was allowed to wear sarongs during the swimsuit competition while others were not, and everybody had noticed this favouritism towards Priyanka.

Leilani said, "Priyanka Chopra was the only person who was allowed to keep her sarong on. Apparently, she was using some skin tone cream to even out her skin tone, and it was still splotchy. I'm not saying that it was a bleaching cream, it was a skin tone cream. And it didn't work, so she didn't want to remove her sarong. So, during the actual judgement, she's literally in a dress... If you're a contestant in a pageant and somebody favours you, what will you do about it? Why wouldn't you go along with it?"

Pointing out that a constant can't be blamed for receiving special treatment, Leilani claimed she personally found Chopra an "unlikable" person. "My only problem with Priyanka is that getting to know her in the pageant, she was just unlikeable. And she is Meghan Markle best friend so go figure," she added.

Meanwhile, Indians have come out in support of Priyanka Chopra and defended her, saying it is too late to speak now. In the video shared on Reddit, one user commented, "There was a controversy back then over Priyanka taking Mother Teresa's name as a living person in the year 2000. The Indian channels extensively discussed it. Except that one error, she did great in all the other rounds. It was said she made up for that one wrong answer with the total points. It comes across like a sour grapes situation crying foul now, Miss Barbados." Watch the video here

While another comment read, "And then, Priyanka went on to become one of the biggest stars/actors in India and now shooting her shot in Hollywood and this lady is doing YouTube. Guess the one who was actually talented won."

Priyanka Chopra, after winning the Miss World crown, entered the Hindi film industry and became one of the most sought-after female stars. Following a successful career in India, Chopra moved to Hollywood and has established herself among the A-listers. She lives with her singer husband Nick Jonas and daughter Malti in LA and recently returned to India after three years to launch her haircare brand.