[icarus]

Not the same as Miss Universe, but my friend just competed in the Mrs. Universe competition. I won't say what country she represented but the pageant sounds pretty shady, with alleged connections to organised crime, lots of bitchiness and the voting hopelessly rigged. The winner represented a country other than her own and was not married, which seem like they should be two pretty fundamental rules of Mrs. Universe.

That said, she did meet a few genuinely nice and inspirational contestants there who were championing good causes.

My friend said that overall it was an eye-opening experience, she's glad she did it but would never participate in something like that again. Oh and she said she was starving the whole time, there was basically no food available for the ladies, they had to sneak out to eat!