Piers Morgan clashes with Miss World 2018 on criteria for winners, insists on choosing 'hottest contestant' ahead of judging pageant
Piers Morgan, who has signed up to be one of the judges on the forthcoming 2019 Miss World pageant, clashed with the former winner of the contest during a heated segment of 'Good Morning Britain.'
While 2018 Miss World Vanessa Ponce, 27, from Mexico, claimed that contestants on the show were more than their looks and their personality and knowledge mattered, the British host, 54, insisted that people don't want an "ugly winner" adding that there was nothing stopping him from favoring the "hottest" woman as the judge of the upcoming pageant.
"The pageant changes a lot," Vanessa said. "Every four years we get together and vote on what should change, what should evolve. We're very updated. We don't have bikini competitions."
Interjecting the reigning Miss World, Morgan said, "I have a problem with this," adding, "How are you going to stop me basically wanting to judge it on aesthetics and chose the hottest contestant?"
His perverse comments did not end there. "My natural reaction will be not be, 'How do you cure world peace?' but how hot do you look," he said.
Initially, Vanessa tried to make light of the situation, saying "You have to fall in love with their minds as well Piers, come on!"
When the host asked her to weigh in on what kind of questions she wanted him to ask the contestants, Vanessa said, "You should ask about their views, what would they do to help their countries. What are they doing now, their projects are wonderful. Some of them are working with slums in Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago - these girls have things to say."
Morgan interrupted the globally celebrated beauty once again and said, "But ultimately, you're living proof of this, we don't want to have an ugly one win."
To that, Vanessa cheekily replied, "There's no ugliness there."
Morgan seemed to agree with Miss World but not in the way she would have liked. "Exactly! It's a celebration of beauty as well as brains, but we want to see beauty. What's wrong with celebrating beauty?" he quipped.
Vanessa ended the conversation with "We should praise it, as it's something we are born with, it's god-given. But beauty doesn't count if you have nothing to use it for."