This was Miss Universe 2008's unexpected reaction when The New Paper asked her about her sexy pictures for an advertising campaign.
Instead of feeling embarrassed, Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza was quite the opposite.
The outgoing brunette - who is in town as a celebrity guest for the SingTel Singapore Grand Prix - said cheerfully about her nude photos: 'I was very excited and happy, because I never knew my pictures could surface in Singapore. Imagine that!
'So I was very thankful for the people that got the pictures to the media. I never knew that three years after taking (them), they're going to be all over the world.
'I'm very proud of my job and I'll keep doing it,' she said during the interview yesterday.
The controversy was hardly the ideal start to her year-long reign as Miss Universe, but at least there was a happy ending.
A few weeks after being crowned the most beautiful woman in the world in July, Dayana came under fire when photos of her modelling nude for a jewellery firm started circulating online.
The 22-year-old Elite model from Venezuela ( a country with already 5 Miss Universe, 5 Miss World & 5 Miss International ) had shot the ad campaign three years ago, before her pageant days.
The main photo on the Internet featured Dayana with her arms covering her breasts and her legs crossed.
Netizens started speculating whether she would be stripped of her title.
After all, actress-singer Vanessa Williams, who won Miss America 1984, was pressured to resign when her nude photos, taken two years earlier, were published in Penthouse magazine.
However, officials from the Miss Universe Organization did not penalise Dayana, insisting that the photos were 'artistic in nature, and they don't have an ounce of pornographic content to them'.
Did she worry at all about losing her tiara? 'Oh, no, no,' she said. 'The Miss Universe Organization knew I was a model and they had no problems with that.'
Completely naked
And for the record, she was completely naked during the shoot.
She recalled: 'I was given the option of wearing my underwear (which would have been digitally removed).
'But I trusted that photographer as I had been working with him for a long time. So I said I could do it nude, it was okay.
'We were the only ones in the room though, nobody else was there watching.'
That bump aside, Dayana's Miss Universe journey so far has taken her all over the world - the latest stop being one of the biggest sporting events held on our shores.
Over the next few days, she will be sightseeing at Orchard Road, Singapore Flyer, Night Safari and Sentosa, lunching with President SR Nathan, and gracing F1 parties.
On Monday, she flies back to New York, where she is based and sharing a luxury apartment with the reigning Miss USA and Miss Teen USA.
She raved, her green eyes widening: 'It's crazy, I never thought I could be here! It's my first time at F1 and in Singapore. My dad is a huge F1 fanatic and he watches it every Sunday... He wants me to take pictures of everything!'
However, she is still finding it difficult to identify the drivers.
She has a boyfriend
The 1.76m-tall Dayana - who has a boyfriend she has been seeing for four years - said sheepishly of the race drivers: 'I'm not good with anyone at the moment. I just know they are very tiny and skinny - my dad says they have to be like that to fit in the cars.
'And I know (I'll be towering over them), so I'll have to take my heels off (when I meet them).'
What the beauty queen misses most about Venezuela is her mother's homecooked rice and platanos (bananas).
Unfortunately, she did not inherit her mum's kitchen skills and regretted preparing a pork dish for herself and her two New York housemates recently.
'It became so bad, I was so embarrassed that I ate everything myself. I had it that evening, the next day for lunch and then dinner again - because I didn't want the girls to try it and I felt bad about throwing it away.'
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
