Mrs World Yanks Crown Off Mrs Sri Lanka’s Head After Falsely Outing Her as Divorcee

The Mrs Sri Lanka competition culminated with all the drama of a soap opera on Sunday night, when the winner was crowned only to have it pulled off her head just second later.

Painfully awkward video of the exchange posted online showed the moment last year’s winner crowned her successor, only to take the mic and explain why she was about to immediately dethrone her.

As the announcer revealed the winner to be Pushpika De Silva, the crowd applauded, triumphant music blared and confetti fell, as the outgoing Mrs Sri Lanka (and reigning Mrs World) Caroline Jurie placed the crown on her head.

But De Silva got to bask in the adoration of her subjects for mere seconds, before Jurie took the microphone with a shocking announcement.

“I have a small request as for the Mrs World,” she declared. “There is a rule that you all have to be married and not divorced.”

“So I’m taking my first steps and saying that the crown goes to the first runner up.”

With that, she walked back over to De Silva and yanked the crown off her head, pulling out the pins as the first and second-runners up could only watch in utter confusion, while the triumphant horns continued to blare.

Trying to remain poised as a Mrs Sri Lanka should, the humiliated De Silva just stands there as she is unceremoniously stripped of her title, before taking her bouquet and striding off the stage with what grace she could muster.

Jurie then plonks the crown on the runner-up’s head, and declares her the actual winner, who then has the unenviable task of giving an acceptance speech as if nothing had happened, which just adds more cringe factor to a video already seemingly maxed out.

The organizers later confirmed that De Silva is not divorced, and had not broken any rules, thus was the rightful Mrs Sri Lanka, despite the audacious coup.

In a Facebook post, De Silva insisted she was a single mother, but not divorced, which the organizers knew.

“There are a lot of single mums like me today who are suffering in Sri Lanka,” she said at a press conference the following day. “This crown is dedicated to those women, those single mums who are suffering to raise their kids alone.”

She also revealed in her post that she went to hospital with a head injury due to the snatching, and is taking legal action.

She said more painful than the physical injury to her skull, as well as the embarrassment from the incident, was hearing her young son’s concern for her in the aftermath.

“Finally, I say a true queen is not a woman who snatches another woman’s crown, but a woman who secretly sets another woman’s crown!!” she concluded.

The national director of Mrs Sri Lanka World, Chandimal Jayasinghe, told the BBC that the crown was returned to Mrs De Silva on Tuesday.

“We are disappointed,” he said. “It was a disgrace how Caroline Jurie behaved on the stage and the Mrs World organization has already begun an investigation on the matter.”

Police have also interviewed Jurie about the incident.

According to the site, the Mrs Sri Lanka World beauty pageant is a major contest in the country; the prime minister’s wife was one of the guests who watched the whole thing unfold on Sunday night.