Miss Swimsuit UK stripped of title for 'All Lives Matter' rant on Facebook, doubting George Floyd's innocence
Miss Swimsuit UK was stripped of her title after she took to Facebook to post an anti-Black Lives Matter message and even questioned whether George Floyd had been innocent. Jasmine Archer Jones, who was the 2019 swimsuit champion, decided to share her views on Facebook in a since-deleted post. Floyd died after now-former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for a sickening eight minutes while restraining him.
According to The Sun, the 23-year-old had written, "This is ridiculous now. It HAS to STOP. ALL lives matter, if you look deeply into statistics, more UNARMED WHITE people DIED than BLACK last year. I DO NOT discriminate against any person. But THIS IS NOT OK." Jones went on, "yes, some people may say George Floyd died when he was innocent but I am yet to see hard evidence of this. There is video footage of him refusing to get out of his car which warrants for the police officers to use whatever means necessary to restrain the person."
Jones went as far as to suggest that Floyd could have also had drugs in his system when he was killed by the police. "He also SUPPOSEDLY had drugs in his system, but I doubt they will release the autopsy now... Oh and let’s not forget that George Floyd also has a criminal record dating back to the 90s," the post read. She had marked her post as her 'personal opinion' and said, "if you don’t wanna know don’t read" As a result of her post, she was stripped of her title and de-crowned.
Miss Swimsuit UK also deleted all traces of Jones from their website. A source spoke to The Sun and revealed that Jones had "tried to sweep it [the post] under the carpet." The source also shared that Miss Swimsuit UK had disassociated with Jones as they support the BLM movement. The organization took to its website to explain the importance of Miss Swimsuit UK contestants as role models. "The aim of Miss Swimsuit UK is to shape the beauty stars of tomorrow, meeting the demand among today’s social media generation for glamorous, accessible role models that they can aspire to and emulate," Miss Swimsuit UK said.
Jones was crowned during the 2019 and 2020 competition which had taken place in September. She also had a link on Instagram to the competition website and the organization's page also had her social media linked under 'current queen'. After she was stripped of her title, Jones was told to remove the link. Miss Swimsuit UK has now listed its 2018 winner as Kinna Louise as their queen. Jones is not even included in the list of Previous Winners category.
It was just last month that the organization had posted in support of BLM before Jones was stripped of her title. The organization had written, "When is the human race going to figure out once and for all that we are all the same? Love one another."