Photo: Getty Images
Miss England Milla Magee suddenly quit the Miss World pageant earlier this month amid claims that organizers in India paraded her around like a "performing monkey" and made her "feel like a prostitute," the Sun reported.
Magee, 24, the first Miss England to ever quit the contest during its 74-year run, was flown to Hyderabad for publicity events on May 7, at which point she claimed contestants were told to wear their gowns all day, including during breakfast, and allegedly asked to entertain middle-aged businessmen at tables as a "thank you" for financing the event.
“We were expected to sit with them for the whole evening and entertain them as a thank you,” Magee said via the Sun. “I found that unbelievable. I remember thinking, ‘This is so wrong.’ I didn’t come here to be farmed out for people’s entertainment. Miss World is supposed to have the same values, but it’s outdated and stuck in the past. They made me feel like a prostitute.”
“At one point, I tried to talk about the causes I was supporting, but it was obvious the men at the table were not interested. Instead, there was weird small-talk that left me feeling uncomfortable… We were there to please these people and sit like performing monkeys. I couldn’t stand it,” she added.
Magee said the pageant organizers chastised the contestants for being "boring" while one allegedly clapped her hands in her face.
“She clapped her hands right in my face to get my attention and as a signal for people to listen to her… It was so disrespectful, like she was addressing children rather than a coach full of adult women,” she told the Sun.
Magee, a trained lifeguard who had previously advocated for the pageant to get rid of the swimwear round and instead be judged on life-saving skills, quit the competition and flew home to Cornwall on May 16, at which point she was replaced by runner-up, Miss Liverpool Charlotte Grant, 25, as Miss England.