Although the Miss Grand International (MGI) contest ended on November 17, the surrounding controversy has not yet come to an end. Most recently, the Miss Grand India Organizing Committee suddenly posted a notice to terminate its cooperation with the MGI Organizing Committee, despite the fact that Indian beauty Rachel Gupta won the highest position.
On the other hand, BTC MGI also pointed out many violations of Miss Grand India and decided not to renew the contract with this unit in 2025. Instead, a new license owner will be announced in the near future.
The copyright holder of MGI is chairman Nawat Itsaragrisil - a billionaire in the top 15 richest people in the Thai entertainment industry in 2023, according to Wealthy Thai.
The noise surrounding MGI makes many people remember Anne Jakrajutatip - the transgender billionaire who holds the copyright of Miss Universe.
Anne Jakrajutatip was born in 1979, graduated from Bond University (Australia) and is known as the "media mogul" of Thailand. According to Forbes, in 2020, she was the richest transgender woman in Thailand, Asia and the 3rd richest in the world.
In 2022, she made history by becoming the first woman to own the Miss Universe pageant in its 71-year history. The price she paid to buy the copyright of this contest was about 20 million USD.
However, since taking over Miss Universe, Anne Jakrajutatip has made many changes to the format of the competition, as well as the bidding for the competition's copyright in different countries. Her actions have continuously caused controversy.
According to the new regulations, the runner-up of the national Miss Universe pageant will not be allowed to participate in other pageants. Previously, this runner-up was still sent to compete in beauty pageants such as Miss International, Miss Supranational, Miss Peace or Miss Earth...
In addition, Ms. Anne sold the copyright of the contest in countries at an exorbitant price. Typically, the company organizing Miss Universe in Indonesia raised the price 10 times in 2022 but still could not buy the copyright of the contest.
This has caused many countries such as Seychelles, Ghana... to declare that they will not send representatives to Miss Universe. The old organizing committees in Türkiye, Indonesia, India, Vietnam... had to stop cooperating and give the copyright of the contest to other organizers.
Beauty fans angrily called Anne the "nemesis" of national directors, because she changed bidding regulations, ignored organizational experience and time spent working.
Throughout 2023 and 2024, Ms. Anne was also constantly rumored to be losing money in business, and the large company under her name went bankrupt. The increased competition royalties were said to be to compensate for the losses.
On the other hand, from 2023, Miss Universe will allow transgender, married, and childbearing contestants to participate. This is considered a groundbreaking innovation under Ms. Anne Jakrajutatip.
