Miss World
Miss World is the oldest existing international beauty pageant. It was created in the United Kingdom by Eric Morley in 1951. Since his death in 2000, Morley's widow, Julia Morley, has chaired the pageant. Along with Miss Universe, Miss International, and Miss Earth, it is one of the Big Four beauty pageants.
The current Miss World is Suchata Chuangsri of Thailand who was crowned on 31 May 2025 in Hyderabad, India.
History
20th century
In 1951 Eric Morley organised a bikini contest as part of the Festival of Britain celebrations that he called the Festival Bikini Contest. The event was popular with the press, which dubbed it "Miss World". The swimsuit competition was intended as a promotion for the bikini, which had only recently been introduced to the market and was still widely regarded as immodest. When the 1951 Miss World pageant winner, Kerstin "Kiki" Hakansson from Sweden, was crowned in a bikini, it added to the controversy.The pageant was originally planned as a Pageant for the Festival of Britain, but Morley decided to make the Miss World pageant annual. He registered the "Miss World" name as a trademark, and all future pageants were held under that name. But because of the controversy arising from Håkansson's crowning in a bikini, countries with religious traditions threatened not to send delegates to future events, and the bikini was condemned by the Pope. Objection to the bikini led to its replacement in all future pageants with more modest swimwear, and from 1976 swimsuits were replaced by evening gowns for the crowning. Håkansson remains the only Miss World crowned in a bikini. In Miss World 2013 all participants wore a one-piece swimsuit plus a traditional sarong below the waist as a compromise with local culture.
Morley announced the Miss World winners in the order No. 3, No. 2 and No. 1. This was intended to keep the tension up, and avoid the anticlimax if Nos. 2 and 3 are announced after the winner.
In 1959 the BBC began to broadcast the pageant. Its popularity grew with the advent of television. During the 1960s and 1970s, Miss World was among the most watched programs of the year on British television. In 1970, the contest in London was disrupted by women's liberation protesters armed with flour bombs, stink bombs, and water pistols loaded with ink. The 1970 contest was also controversial when South Africa sent two contestants. Henceforth, South Africa was banned from the contest until apartheid was abolished. More than 18 million people watched the pageant at its peak during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In the 1980s the pageant repositioned itself with the slogan "Beauty With a Purpose", with added tests of intelligence and personality. In 1984, BBC1 controller Michael Grade announced that the corporation would cease to broadcast beauty pageants the next January, after it had shown Miss Great Britain, saying, "I believe these contests no longer merit national air time." He added, "They are an anachronism in this day and age of equality and verging on the offensive." Thames Television broadcast Miss World between 1980 and 1988, when ITV dropped it.
During the early 1990s mainstream television broadcasts of the event declined in popularity after it became "increasingly unfashionable" in the late 1980s. The pageant returned on satellite channel Sky One in 1997, before moving to Channel 5 for three years.
Eric Morley died in 2000, and his wife, Julia, succeeded him as chair of the Miss World organisation.
21st century
The first black African Miss World winner, Agbani Darego of Nigeria, was crowned in 2001. As part of its marketing strategy, Miss World came up with a "Vote For Me" television special during that edition, featuring the delegates behind the scenes and on the beach, and allowing viewers to phone in or vote online for their favourites. It also sells broadcasters its Talent, Beach Beauty and Sports events as television specials. ITV broadcast the 2001 pageant from South Africa on digital channel ITV2, with the special airing a week earlier on the main ITV channel.In 2002, the pageant was slated to host its final in Abuja, Nigeria. This choice was controversial, as a northern Nigerian woman, Amina Lawal, was awaiting death by stoning for adultery under Sharia law there, but Miss World used the publicity surrounding its presence to bring greater global awareness and action to Lawal's plight. No British channel agreed to broadcast the event, and there were objections to the contest.
Former Miss World Aishwarya Rai attended the Miss World 2014 ceremony with her husband Abhishek Bachchan, daughter Aaradhya and mother Brinda Rai. The pageant has been broadcast on local TV channel London Live since 2014.
Miss World Organization
The Miss World Organization owns and manages the annual Miss World Finals, a competition that has grown into one of the world's biggest. Since its launch in 1951, the Miss World organisation has raised more than £1 billion for children's charities that help disabled and underprivileged children. Miss World is franchised in more than 100 countries.1970s–1990s
The Miss World pageant has been the target of many controversies since its inception.- In 1970, feminist protesters threw flour bombs during the live event at London's Royal Albert Hall, momentarily alarming the host, Bob Hope.
- The 1973 winner, Marjorie Wallace, was stripped of her title on 8 March 1974 because she had failed to fulfill the basic requirements of the job. Miss World's organizers did not elect someone to serve in her place.
- In 1976, several countries boycotted the pageant because it included both a white and a black contestant from South Africa.
- The 1980 winner, Gabriella Brum of Germany, resigned one day after winning. A few days later it emerged that she had been forced to resign after it was discovered that she had posed naked for a magazine.
Nigeria 2002
Despite the increasing international profile the boycott was garnering in the world press, the contest proceeded in Nigeria after being rescheduled to avoid taking place during Ramadan, with many prominent nations sending delegates. Osmel Sousa of Venezuela, one of the world's most influential national directors, said, "there is no question about it ." But the trouble did not end there. A ThisDay newspaper editorial suggesting that Muhammad would probably have chosen one of his wives from among the contestants had he been alive to see it resulted in inter-religious riots that started on 22 November in which over 200 people were killed in the city of Kaduna and many houses of worship were burned by religious zealots. Because of these riots, the 2002 pageant was moved to London, following widely circulated reports that Canada's and Korea's representatives had withdrawn from the contest and returned to their respective countries out of safety concerns. A fatwa urging the beheading of the woman who wrote the offending words, Isioma Daniel, was issued in Nigeria, but was declared null and void by the relevant Saudi Arabian authorities. Upon the pageant's return to Britain, many of the boycotting contestants chose to attend, including Miss Norway, Kathrine Sørland, who was ironically tipped in the last few days as the favourite for the crown she had previously boycotted.
The eventual winner of the pageant was Azra Akın of Turkey.