It’s not particularly interesting to me that the newly crowned Miss Universe is Puerto Rican. My views on this pageant pretty much reflect those of my VL compañera, and the show is a cheese fest to boot, so I didn’t watch it. What I am more interested in is the fact that the winner, Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza, collapsed after her coronation. This interests me because I love drama, of course, and because I wonder if her losing consciousness was just the nerves and jubilation, or because she hadn’t been consuming any food in preparation for the event. Apparently, press had the same question.

“She’s okay. She’s fine,” pageant representative Lark Anton told Reuters. “She got dizzy. It’s very hot up here. Her dress is tight – as you could see it was beaded and heavy. She passed out.”

Anton said Mendoza “had plenty to eat today,” when pressed for the beauty queen’s condition before she fainted at the center of the stage at the Shrine Auditorium…

Whether she was starving herself or not, the fact that this was a possibility is frightening, and is a terrible example for young girls who idolize these women.

Via / People