AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

De­spite be­ing tout­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as “one to watch,” Miss Uni­verse T&T con­tes­tant Lat­i­fah Mor­ris did not ad­vance to the Top 30 at the Miss Uni­verse 2025 pageant. Still, sup­port and praise con­tin­ue to pour in for the T&T rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

The com­pe­ti­tion, held yes­ter­day in Bangkok, Thai­land, end­ed with Mex­i­co’s Fá­ti­ma Bosch be­ing crowned Miss Uni­verse 2025.

In a so­cial me­dia post fol­low­ing the re­sults, Mor­ris ex­pressed grat­i­tude and pride for her jour­ney.

“Guys, there’s things we don’t ques­tion. T&T will def­i­nite­ly be re­mem­bered, the peo­ple said it and showed it in their re­spons­es every time the name was called. I feel com­plete and that’s what mat­ters,” Mor­ris said.

Miss Uni­verse T&T fran­chise hold­ers Crowns & Sash­es TT pub­licly thanked Mor­ris, writ­ing, “To our Queen, THANK YOU! You did this coun­try ex­treme­ly proud. Class and grace per­son­i­fied.”

Mean­while, many have dubbed Bosch’s win as “pay­back,” fol­low­ing the con­tro­ver­sy ear­li­er in the sea­son when the Thai pageant of­fi­cial Nawat It­sara­grisil pub­licly chas­tised her and al­leged­ly la­belled her as a “dumb­head”.

At the start of the com­pe­ti­tion, It­sara­grisil be­rat­ed Bosch in front of sev­er­al con­tes­tants for not par­tic­i­pat­ing in pro­mo­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties and or­dered se­cu­ri­ty to es­cort her out. Sev­er­al con­tes­tants, in­clud­ing last year’s win­ner, walked out in sol­i­dar­i­ty.

Nawat lat­er is­sued a tear­ful apol­o­gy but was sub­se­quent­ly dis­missed from his role.

But Bosch’s win al­so sparked some di­vi­sion, with some crit­ics la­belling her win as a ‘sym­pa­thy win.’

Miss Thai­land Praveenar Singh placed first run­ner-up, while Miss Venezuela Stephany Abasali fin­ished third. Round­ing out the Top 5 were Miss Philip­pines Ma Ahti­sa Man­a­lo and Miss Côte d’Ivoire Olivia Yace.