In 2015, Steve Harvey, allegedly, committed one of the biggest blunders of all time in pageant history by mistakenly announcing Ms Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez, as the winner and then taking it back a few moments later to give the crown to the rightful winner, Ms Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach.
It was not an easy moment for any of us. We all felt the embarrassment for Ms Colombia while others felt that the crowning moment of Ms Philippines was robbed(not by Ms Colombia). Others have called out for the crown to be shared between the contestants while others have rightfully corrected that stance by saying a winner wins a competition due to a score, not by a mistake of the emcee.
Both ladies have handled it well to their best capabilities. Steve Harvey faced the media as a man. The rest of social media went out of control.
Even Bieber joined in with the memes.
In an interview with Today, Steve Harvey said, “I needed her to forgive me. I need her to know that I was genuinely sorry because I felt horrible.”
He followed up, “I was ashamed for the mistake but also a little bit angry at the mistake.”
“I read the teleprompter. And clearly, I read what it said to read. And then I followed the direct instruction(pointing to his ear), in my ear. We went straight from ‘And the New 2015 Miss Universe is’ and it said read the card. All the cards in rehearsal never had any of that on that, except the name,” Harvey clarified.
Ms Colombia did appear in the Steve Harvey show, where he apologised publicly. Adriadna said on the interview that she has forgiven him and Colombia is going to forgive Harvey after the interview.
Harvey did mention that he does not plan going to Colombia anytime soon. Hug comes at 4:10 in the video but we’d recommend watching the whole thing. Looks like everything is patched up between them and hopefully supporters will do the same. Maybe next time, the screens should flash the flag of the winner and have a better card placement and the same one to be used in rehearsal.