Miss Lebanon Cries "Photobomb" Over Controversial Miss Israel Selfie
At its best, the Miss Universe contest is like a (more) superficial United Nations, complete with flawed solutions to tough policy questions. Just like the real UN, however, sometimes there's just no seeing eye to eye, as was the case with this week's spat over a controversial selfie showing Misses from warring Israel and Lebanon.
According to Lebanon's The Daily Star, Miss Lebanon Saly Greige has faced fierce criticism back home since Sunday, when she appeared in an Instagram photo with Miss Israel Doron Matalon. The offending selfie—which, to be clear, just shows several women from the same beauty pageant sitting approximate to each other—reportedly had some demanding she be stripped of her crown.
Now Greige appears to have thrown her pageant-mate under the bus over the image, posting a version of the photo with Matalon cropped out on Saturday with the following caption:
The truth behind the photo, since the first day of my arrival to participate to Miss universe,I was very cautious to avoid being in any photo or communication with Miss isreal, who tried several times to take a photo with me.
I was having a photo with Miss Japan, Miss Slovenia, suddenly Miss Israel jumped in and took a selfie, and uploaded it on her social media.
For her part, Matalon seems to be taking the photobomb accusation in stride.
"It doesn't surprise me, but it still makes me sad," wrote Matalon on Facebook. "Too bad you can not put the hostility out of the game, only for three weeks of an experience of a lifetime that we can meet girls from around the world and also from the neighboring country."
Oh well. We can give world peace a shot next year, I guess.