Two judges announced their resignation from the Miss Universe competition, with one arguing it was rigged, days before the pageant is set to crown its 74th winner.
It is the latest controversy to roil the beauty pageant after a top organizer caused an outcry with a tirade against Miss Mexico, prompting several contestants to briefly walk out in protest.
On Tuesday, Omar Harfouch, a Lebanese-French composer, said on Instagram that he had resigned from the eight-member judging panel, accusing the competition of being a “charade” that lacks transparency.
His most striking claim was that the contest has a second group of judges who make decisions in secret about who makes the final. The Miss Universe Organization has denied the claims.
Hours later, a second judge, former French soccer star Claude Makélélé, said on Instagram that he would not attend the contest, citing “unforeseen personal reasons.” He added, “This was a difficult decision, as I hold Miss Universe in the highest regard.”
Miss Universe, started by a California swimwear company in 1952, is one of the best-known international beauty pageants.
The Miss Universe Organization owns the brand and makes money by licensing it to national organizations and selling broadcast rights. Demand from broadcasters and sponsors has declined in recent decades as audiences lost interest in beauty pageants.
This year’s contest is scheduled to conclude Friday in Bangkok after a preliminary competition Wednesday.
In his posts, Harfouch wrote that he had discovered an “impromptu jury,” formed to select the competition’s 30 finalists out of the 136 participants without the knowledge of the eight judges. He said some members of the group, whom he did not name, have personal relationships with the contestants.
Harfouch said that after confronting the organizers about this, they published a list of names involved in the selection process. He said he resigned after a conversation with Raul Rocha Cantu, the president and co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization, about what he called the “lack of transparency in the Miss Universe voting process.”
The Miss Universe Organization, in a statement, denied the existence of an second set of judges. “All competition evaluations continue to follow the established, transparent and supervised MUO protocols,” it said, using an acronym for the organization.
It accused Harfouch of making a “public mischaracterization of the program” and said the list of names it published was the selection committee of an unrelated social impact initiative.
The organization did not respond to Makélélé’s announcement and did not respond to a request for comment from The New York Times.
The judges’ departures came weeks after a number of contestants walked out after Nawat Itsaragrisil, a Thai businessperson who co-owns the Miss Universe Organization, scolded Fátima Bosch, Miss Mexico, for not taking part in some promotional activities.
The following day, Nawat apologized. Cantu rebuked Nawat, saying he would not allow contestants to be “attacked and humiliated.”