Dr Sih­lè Le­tren has an­nounced her res­ig­na­tion as Miss Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go, step­ping down ahead of the Miss Uni­verse 2025 com­pe­ti­tion.

The pageant takes place on No­vem­ber 21 in Thai­land.

In a state­ment on Wednes­day evening, Le­tren said, “It is with both grat­i­tude and re­gret that I an­nounce my res­ig­na­tion as ti­tle hold­er for Miss Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go and as a del­e­gate in the up­com­ing Miss Uni­verse 2025.”

She de­scribed rep­re­sent­ing T&T as “one of the great­est ho­n­ours of my life and ful­fill­ing a long-held dream to stand on a glob­al stage.” How­ev­er, she added, “due to on­go­ing chal­lenges, I am un­able to con­tin­ue in good faith on this jour­ney at this time.”

Le­tren al­so ex­pressed thanks to fran­chise hold­ers Crowns and Sash­es TT, as well as to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, “whose en­cour­age­ment and sup­port have meant so much to me.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion, in its own re­lease yes­ter­day, con­firmed her res­ig­na­tion and praised her con­tri­bu­tions.

“Her jour­ney, marked by grace, in­tel­lect, and re­silience, stands as a tes­ta­ment to the im­mense tal­ent and po­ten­tial that our beloved na­tion con­tin­ues to nur­ture,” the board said.

It added that while tran­si­tions are nev­er easy, they pro­vide “an op­por­tu­ni­ty for growth, re­new­al, and re­flec­tion.” The or­gan­i­sa­tion said it re­mains com­mit­ted to em­pow­er­ing young women to em­brace lead­er­ship and ser­vice, both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, and called on sup­port­ers to fo­cus on “a shared com­mit­ment to com­mu­ni­ty, na­tion-build­ing, and the val­ues of dig­ni­ty, in­tegri­ty, and self­less ser­vice.”

Crowns and Sash­es al­so en­cour­aged the wider com­mu­ni­ty to see this tran­si­tion as “a re­minder that every chal­lenge car­ries with­in it the seeds of hope, heal­ing, and new be­gin­nings.”

It said un­der its stew­ard­ship, the Miss Uni­verse Trinidad and To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion will con­tin­ue to up­hold the high­est stan­dards of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ex­cel­lence, en­sur­ing that the lega­cy of na­tion­al ti­tle­hold­ers re­mains “an en­dur­ing source of pride for our coun­try.”

There is no word just yet on who will re­place Le­tren and rep­re­sent this coun­try at the 74th Miss Uni­verse pageant.

Le­tren’s de­ci­sion to step down is the lat­est in a string of con­tro­ver­sies in the pageant in­dus­try.

This week Miss Grand TT 2025, Tama­ra Per­sad, said she was un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly stripped of the ti­tle. The fran­chise hold­er, Stolen Pro­duc­tions, said it chose to go with the sec­ond run­ner up to rep­re­sent T&T at the Miss Grand In­ter­na­tion­al pageant.

Last month, for­mer Miss T&T Aché Abra­hams spoke out about her painful ex­pe­ri­ence in the pageant world, say­ing it left her emo­tion­al­ly, men­tal­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly drained.

In a YouTube video post­ed to her chan­nel, Abra­hams—who rep­re­sent­ed T&T at Miss World 2023 and placed in the top four—said she would “nev­er go back in­to the pageant space again” af­ter what she en­dured.