RHON­DOR DOWLAT | Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Stolen Pro­duc­tions Lim­it­ed (SPL), the pageant fran­chise hold­er for Miss Grand In­ter­na­tion­al, has dis­tanced it­self from al­le­ga­tions made by Milei­dy Mat­er­a­no, who an­nounced on Wednes­day that she was giv­ing up her crown due to spon­sor­ship is­sues.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day morn­ing, SPLs head of mar­ket­ing and pub­lic re­la­tions Ker­ry Gob­erd­han said the com­pa­ny is spon­sor­ing the del­e­gates.  First run­ner-up Re­bekah His­lop will now be trav­el­ing to Viet­nam next month to rep­re­sent T&T as the crown is now passed to her.

"Our at­tor­neys are prepar­ing a state­ment on what was said. The ac­cu­sa­tions they were mak­ing were in­ac­cu­rate. The new del­e­gate—Re­bekah… The com­pa­ny will be spon­sor­ing her trip, her tick­ets and ac­com­mo­da­tion, which in fact are al­ready paid for.  The on­ly thing we were seek­ing spon­sor­ship for was the air­line tick­et. Every­thing else for the del­e­gate—in terms of ac­com­mo­da­tion, food—those things are al­ready paid for, so the claims they are mak­ing are very in­ac­cu­rate," Gob­erd­han said.

Venezue­lan born Milei­dy Mat­er­a­no, who was crowned Miss Grand In­ter­na­tion­al T&T a few weeks ago and sched­uled to rep­re­sent T&T next month in Viet­nam for Miss Grand In­ter­na­tion­al, has stepped down.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands Mat­er­a­no’s step­ping down was de­cid­ed fol­low­ing new de­vel­op­ments ear­li­er this week per­tain­ing to spon­sor­ship, and not be­cause of the pub­lic out­rage ex­pressed by T&T cit­i­zens over her el­i­gi­bil­i­ty in ad­e­quate­ly rep­re­sent­ing T&T, giv­en the fact that she is not a cit­i­zen of this coun­try.

Miss Grand International Trinidad and Tobago winner Mileidy Materano, sits next to her Attorney, Wayne Sturge, during a press conference at Regius Chambers, Richmond Street, Port-of-Spain, on Wednesday 27 September 2023.

ANISTO ALVES

The an­nounce­ment was made on Wednes­day by her bat­tery of at­tor­neys—Lemuel Mur­phy, Tama­ra Gre­go­rio and lead at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge at his Regius Cham­bers of­fice, Rich­mond Street in Port of Spain.

Sturge dis­closed that Mat­er­a­no's man­ag­er, Charisse Par­sons, was in­formed by the pageant com­pa­ny Stolen Pro­duc­tions Lim­it­ed via a What­sApp mes­sage on her (Par­sons’) cell phone.

“They said that for Milei­dy's reign to con­tin­ue she had to fund on her own the trip to the Viet­nam pageant as well as oth­er in­ci­den­tals, and fail­ure to do so would re­sult in her reign be­ing ter­mi­nat­ed and her crown be­ing passed to the first run­ner up," Sturge re­vealed dur­ing the press con­fer­ence on Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 27.

"In the cir­cum­stances, Milei­dy has de­cid­ed that she will for­mal­ly step down,” Sturge con­firmed. “She wish­es to as­sure that her de­ci­sion was in no way in­flu­enced by any oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions. Milei­dy wish­es to in­di­cate that had it not been for this lat­est de­vel­op­ment she stood ready to con­tin­ue her reign.”

“Milei­dy wish­es the pub­lic and well-wish­ers to un­der­stand that her de­ci­sion was made with a very heavy heart. She wish­es to add that had she been ad­vised of this in ad­vance, she would not have tak­en part in the lo­cal pageant," Sturge added.

Asked if the is­sue of spon­sor­ship was not made clear be­fore to Mat­er­a­no when she first en­tered the lo­cal com­pe­ti­tion, Sturge said:

"In essence, what was com­mu­ni­cat­ed to her man­age­ment be­fore, as we are in­struct­ed, was that the promised spon­sor­ship… and I don't want to say ‘off the ta­ble’… But it wasn't made in very clear terms that she, Miss Mat­er­a­no, was re­spon­si­ble for her own spon­sor­ship."

Asked how much mon­ey it would have cost Mat­er­a­no to go to Viet­nam, Guardian Me­dia was told ap­prox­i­mate­ly $60,000.

The out-of-pock­et mon­ey ex­pens­es from the time she en­tered the com­pe­ti­tion to the time she stepped down are yet to be cal­cu­lat­ed and will be dis­closed in the pub­lic do­main, her at­tor­neys con­firmed.

Milei­dy Mat­er­a­no has been res­i­dent in Trinidad and To­ba­go for the past sev­en years.

When asked whether she has ap­plied for cit­i­zen­ship and her work per­mit, Mat­er­a­no's at­tor­neys said she had.