Inside Miss Universe’s Racism Scandal

There is a particular strain of discrimination that thrives on administrative language and diplomatic tact, the kind that sounds reasonable in the moment, bureaucratic even, until you look closer and realize the math doesn’t add up. On November 21, Mexico’s Fatima Bosch was crowned Miss Universe 2025 in Thailand. Côte d’Ivoire’s Olivia Yacé placed as fourth runner-up and received the title of Miss Universe Africa and Oceania. Two days later, on November 23, Yacé announced her resignation from that continental title and any future affiliation with the Miss Universe Organization. And on November 25, we learned why.

In a live video, Miss Universe Organization president Raul Rocha attempted to answer critics questioning why Yacé hadn’t won the crown. His explanation had nothing to do with her performance or qualifications. Instead, he pointed to her passport.

“For those who say [why] Côte d’Ivoire didn’t win, there are many things that need to be evaluated,” Rocha said in Spanish, before instructing viewers to Google visa requirements for Ivorian passport holders. “One hundred seventy-five countries ask for visas for Côte d’Ivoire. Well then, she is going to be Miss Universe who might spend a whole year in the apartment.”

His phrasing implied inevitability. And because passport strength is rarely interrogated as anything other than an administrative reality, it was meant to sound convincing. The explanation collapses, however, the moment the actual facts are introduced. Olivia Yacé holds an American passport—one of the strongest in the world—alongside her Ivorian one. This is not an obscure detail. Contestants are required to submit their passports and travel documentation to the Miss Universe Organization long before they arrive at the pageant. The organization routinely manages visas, handles travel arrangements, and coordinates international schedules for dozens of women every year. There is no scenario in which Rocha, or the Miss Universe leadership, could have been unaware of her ability to travel freely.

This transforms the incident from an uncomfortable misrepresentation into something strategically dishonest. Rocha was not describing a real obstacle; he was presenting a manufactured one. He spoke as though Yacé’s nationality created insurmountable limitations, despite knowing that she possessed a passport that negated those limitations entirely. In doing so, he effectively separated her identity from her actual documentation and chose to emphasize the version of her that fit the organization’s preferred narrative: the African contestant whose mobility is restricted.

When Miss Guadeloupe, Ophély Mézino, publicly challenged Rocha, she did not uncover information unknown to the organization. She exposed what had been deliberately excluded from his explanation. Her question—whether he was searching for a “racist excuse” to justify denying a qualified woman the crown—rang true. The organization did not overlook Yacé’s American passport; it ignored it because her African identity served as a more convenient justification for the decision they had already made.

The Miss Universe Organization has decades of experience navigating complex travel issues. They have coordinated appearances across continents, negotiated diplomatic permissions, and resolved far more challenging logistical concerns than this one. The notion that Yacé specifically would have posed an unprecedented difficulty is unconvincing. What becomes more plausible is that the organization believed viewers would accept the explanation without scrutiny. They expected audiences to hear “Côte d’Ivoire” and immediately understand the subtext. They assumed that the fiction of a “weak passport” would slip easily into the broader set of assumptions the world already holds about Africa.

Yacé’s decision to return her Miss Universe Africa and Oceania title two days after receiving it was not impulsive. It was a clear rejection of an institution that saw her first and foremost through a lens of limitation, even when the facts contradicted that lens. The organization assessed her through a narrative they had predetermined, one in which an African woman’s identity was treated as a barrier that needed to be justified and explained away.

The pageant will continue, as pageants do. Rocha has reportedly been “looking for someone to pass it on to,” claiming exhaustion with the talk and controversy, expressing interest in selling the organization. It’s a predictable pivot to victimhood, the architect of the mess positioning himself as its casualty. Yet the incident exposes the ease with which institutions rely on racial assumptions when they believe those assumptions will be accepted as common sense. Rocha’s confidence in delivering his explanation is the most revealing part of the story. His attempt shows how administrative racism can easily be mistaken for reason unless someone is willing to challenge it.