Current Miss USA Sarah Rose Summers reportedly mocked Miss Vietnam H'Hen Nie and Miss Cambodia Rern Sinat, but her mother said that the statement was taken out of context.
“She’s so cute and she pretends to know so much English and then you ask her a question after having a whole conversation with her and she goes [nods and smiles],” Summers says in the video before laughing. “She’s adorable.”
Later in the video, she brought up Miss Cambodia, Rern Sinat.
“Miss Cambodia is here and doesn’t speak any English and not a single other person speaks her language. Can you imagine?” she said of Sinat. “Francesca said that would be so isolating and I said yes and just confusing all the time.”
“Poor Cambodia,” she added.
“She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body,” she said of her daughter, before adding: “[Summers] was just recreating how Miss Vietnam acts when she doesn’t understand what someone is saying. She wasn’t trying to mock her.”
Summers, a Nebraska native, was criticized on social media for her comments.
“The future Miss Universe should not be an ambassador of bullying,” said one person, TMZ reported. Another person said it’s a ”shameful display of meanness poorly masked as empathy.”
“Shame on you ladies! Beautiful outside but not inside!!” wrote another person.
Some people stood up for the pageant queen and model.
They added: “Don’t listen to ’em. A lot of people know you weren’t making fun of those two women, in fact, you were telling everyone the wittiness and uniqueness that comes with competing with so many different women from around the world. People need to understand that you were telling everyone how isolating it is and that you felt sad for Cambodia … and that you were sharing a funny and happy experience with Vietnam. Love you!”
Other details about the incident are not clear.
