A beauty queen alleged that many pageant organisations operate on pay-for-title models, requiring contestants to fund their own crowns and sashes.
This placed heavy financial expectations on participants, said Prestige Pageants founder- CEO Lavania Priya.
Ms Lavania, who was Mrs Earth Water 2023 and Mrs Earth Singapore 2023, said in a statement to Stomp: “Prestige Pageants was created to change that system. We refuse to operate on models that profit from women’s vulnerability or dreams.”
The statement was in response to a Dec 8 report by Stomp about Mrs Asia Worldwide 2024 Sangeetha S. Sangar and Ms R. Abigail Jayanthi, who was Mrs Singapore Global, being publicly “dethroned” by Lumiere International Pageantry on Nov 25 for “serious breaches”.
Chief among them, Lumiere accused the two women of being involved in the formation and operation of Prestige Pageants and using their titles to promote the company. This breached a clause in their contracts with Lumiere prohibiting titleholders from joining or organising other competitions during their reigns.
Ms Sangeetha is listed on the Prestige Pageants website as a co-founder and director.
In the Dec 10 statement to Stomp, Prestige Pageants clarified: “While early planning discussions included contributions from team members, the official operating company is under Lavania Priya, and any earlier administrative filings or exploratory setups by team members, including Sangeetha Sangar, were part of the vision-building and planning phase.
