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NYC's first-ever Miss Sri Lanka pageant descends into all-out BRAWL!

Pageant organizers claimed no one involved in the brawl was a contestant

STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK: A beauty pageant that was supposed to be a memorable event for both the contestants and the spectators turned ugly after a brawl broke out between them. This incident occurred during the first edition of Miss Sri Lanka New York, which was disrupted by a brawl between several people at the pageant's after-party in the South Beach neighborhood of Staten Island. Video of the fracas, which has gone viral on social media, shows men and women, including the contestants, beating each other up at the event. The show was attended by more than 300 people last Friday, October 21.

It is not clear though what led to this brawl at The Vanderbilt in South Beach, where there is a large Sri Lankan population. “This is the typical behavior of village Sri Lankans,” a social-media user wrote of Friday’s kerfuffle, according to the South China Morning Post. “Every event ends up in a brawl. From elders to children to women. They hit each other with plastic chairs, umbrellas. It’s quite exciting to watch.” According to the outlet, multiple individuals, related to the incident were arrested. 

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This is not the first time a fight broke out in a Sri Lanka beauty pageant. In 2021, the reigning Mrs Sri Lanka was arrested after she snatched the crown from the head of a rival by saying that she should’ve been disqualified because she was divorced. However, one of the pageant organizers, Sujani Fernando, had nice things to say about her country and people. “Sri Lankans are good people,” she said. “It’s just a fight — fights happen, kids fight. That happens in any culture, and any nationality, it doesn’t have to be Sri Lankans. We’re not that type of people.”

Fernando said that the unbecoming incident overshadowed the hard work of the 14 young women who competed in the pageant. “It’s very sad to see,” Fernando said. “The girls were so happy. You should see the effort, you should see the time they put into this, but they didn’t get a single minute to enjoy it.”

As Sri Lanka faces medicine and equipment shortages amid a dire pandemic economic crisis, organizers planned the pageant to raise funds for the nation’s national cancer hospital.  “First ever and last. What a disgrace,” wrote another user on a Daily Mirror video of the fight. 

Angelia Gunasekara was crowned Miss Sri Lanka New York at the beauty parade. Chandra Muniweera said the fight broke out around midnight towards the end of the event. She denied anyone involved in the pageant was involved in the fight. “We thought we had a very nice and a very good pageant, but unfortunately, this incident happened,” Muniweera told the Staten Island Advance. 

Fernando said the lies and the rumors circulating across different social media platforms are only hurting the future and reputation of the 14 women who participated in the event. “They’re building stories from those few videos, but they don’t understand the damage they’re doing to these 14 girls who were not involved in the fight,” she said. “I just feel so bad for the girls because people should let them enjoy the moment, enjoy their victory because they put in so much time.”