For 24 hours, Denise Garrido was Miss Universe Canada. At the end of the event on Saturday night, she was crowned the winner of the 2013 pageant, but it turned out that she only got the crown and sash because of a typo. In reality, the winner was supposed to be Riza Santos, who was presented the crown on Monday.
Garrido was celebrated with a party Saturday night and got all the accolades during the event thanks to an employee’s typo, reports ABC News. Santos was the runner-up.
However, an independent audit after the event found that an error was made when the hand-written scores from the judges were put into the computer to calculate the winner. After the typo was discovered, Garrido dropped all the way to third place.
“I was shocked and disappointed and kind of embarrassed because of all of the celebrations and congratulatory messages I’d received,” Garrido later told ABC News. Even though she’s disappointed, Garrido said that she knew it wasn’t her fault and the Donald Trump-owned organization explained the error clearly to her.
As for Santos, the Calgary native found out that she had actually won in Las Vegas. “I was sitting by the pool at my hotel,” she told the Calgary Herald. “I had to go to a washroom so I could hear him, the music was so loud by the pool. He asked, ‘Are you sitting down?’ so I sat on the sink.”
After she heard the news, she nearly fell. ““I was in a complete state of shock.”
Both women went on CNN Wednesday. “Things happen for a reason. And I really wanted to win Ms. Universe Canada, and I won Ms. Universe Canada. It may not have ended exactly as I had hoped for, but (for) 24 hours I was Ms. Universe Canada, and now Riza gets to share in on this experience and she gets one fantastic year ahead of her,” Garrido said.
This is the second year in a row that the Miss Universe Canada pageant is getting attention for a surprising turn of events. Last year, a transgender contestant successfully fought for the right to compete in the pageant after she was initially blocked from entering.