Pageant winner loses crown after dye job
Fifteen-year-old Olivia O’Neil recently won the title of Miss Teen
Wanganui, but her reign was short-lived. According to The New Zealand
Herald, Facebook photos surfaced of her newly dyed brown hair (she was
blond when she was crowned), and pageant organizer Barbara Osborne was
incensed. “Is that a wig?” Osborne wrote. “I hope it is, don’t give me
heart failure.”
Olivia O’Neil |
Olivia admitted that she had in fact dyed her blond hair dark, and
said that if she wasn’t allowed to dye her hair, then maybe pageant life
wasn’t for her. “Well you better decide, miss. Hand over your crown with
an attitude like that.
I’m sure someone will step into your place with manners,” said
Osborne, adding that O’Neil “would not go far in this world.”
Olivia gave up her crown and went straight to the Herald. “I don’t
think you can tell a 15-year-old that they aren’t going to go very far
in life,” she said. “It’s hurtful. She was always really harsh on the
girls. And when she says things like ‘present yourself better,’ ‘wear
lots of makeup,’ ‘do 20 sit-ups,’ it gets to you after a while.”
Pageant spokesman Jevan Goulter confirmed with The Herald that her
crown was stripped because of the hair dye. “The expectation in holding
the crown (was) that she maintain the image she had when she won it,”
said Goulter. But is that an expectation or a clearly stated rule? He
insisted that O’Neil’s claims of harsh treatment behind the scenes are
an exaggeration. “In a beauty pageant, it’s not about sugar coating and
providing lip service to the girls. They should be treated the same way
as in any other beauty pageant in the world.”
We reached out to Jevan Goulter ourselves for a comment on O’Neil’s
standing. He responded, “I would like to make very clear that Olivia
never had her crown taken off she gave it back.
Yahoo |