May Myat Noe, winner of Miss Asia Pacific World 2014. Photograph: Khin Maung Win/AP
A Burmese beauty queen who was stripped of her title for allegedly being rude and dishonest has run off with the £60,000 jewelled crown from a South Korea-based pageant, according to organisers.
May Myat Noe is said to have vanished from the competition after officials were adamant that she have breast enhancement
surgery.Burma, which only recently emerged from a half-century military rule and self-imposed isolation, started sending contestants to international beauty contests again in 2012.
May Myat Noe was crowned Miss Asia Pacific World in Seoul in May 2014. But, according to David Kim, director of media for the Seoul-based pageant, the 18-year-old was a disappointment from the start.
Attempts to reach May Myat Noe for comment were unsuccessful on Friday and her Burmese phone was switched off. According to the online edition of Eleven Media, a Burmese newspaper, she was back in the country and would address a news conference soon, although it was not clear when.
Following her success, the organisers said they were arranging singing and video deals for her. But they also wanted to change the teenager's looks, Kim said.
"We thought she should be more beautiful ... so as soon as she arrived we sent her to the hospital to operate on her breasts," he said.
"It's our responsibility," he said, adding that sponsors picked up the tab, which came to the equivalent of £6,000, as they have for past winners. "If she has no good nose, then maybe, if she likes, we can operate on her nose. If it's breasts, then breasts."
Kim said that troubles started from there. The beauty queen took her mother with her to Seoul for what was supposed to be a 10-day visit, but that quickly turned into three months, incurring extra cost to the organisers, he said.
She "lied" and "never had respect for the main organisation, the national director, the manager, media or fans who made her the winner", organisers said in a statement.
May Myat Noe was notified this week that she would have to give up her title and the crown, Kim said. She was also given a plane ticket back to Rangoon, but never turned up, with Eleven Media reporting that she got on an earlier flight.
Kim said she had absconded with the bejewelled Swarovski tiara – valued between £60,000 and £120,000.
"Everyone knows she is no longer the queen, but she thinks as long as she keeps this crown she's the winner," he said. "She's not."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/29/burma-beauty-queen-tiara-breast-may-myat-noe
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