Controversy gets uglier as Korean exec threatens to sue Miss Myanmar
The Korean businessman behind the scandal-plagued beauty pageant that crowned a 15-year-old girl from Myanmar Miss Asia Pacific World last May says he will sue her to protect the dignity of the East Asian nation.
Lawrence Choi, the founder and president of the pageant, said he would sue May Myat Noe and her mother because they had lied at a press conference on September 2 in Yangon. They told reporters that pageant organisers had attempted to coerce the girl into “escorting” Korean tycoons and undergoing “head to toe” plastic surgery.
The dignity of South Korea is at stake because the case has made headlines across Asia, Choi said. He said he had visited the Myanmar Embassy in Seoul and that he had evidence to back up a lawsuit against the girl.
Choi previously described May Myat Noe and her mother as rude and ungrateful liars, and accused the girl of stealing the tiara as well as breast implants worth US$10,000.
He did not disclose the details of the pending lawsuit or whether he was demanding the return of the implants, which May Myat Noe said she never received. She told the press conference that she refused to be pressured into the operation and that it was also illegal to perform such surgery on a 15-year-old.
Choi previously admitted that pageant orgnanisers were aware of the girl’s age before she won the pageant, which has been rocked by scandals in the past.
Choi’s threat of a lawsuit seems to have had no effect on the girl or her mother.
“Like we said during the press conference, if they apologise, we will return the tiara. Otherwise, we will bring lawsuits against Hla Nu Tun [the Myanmar director of the pageant] and Lawrence Choi if they continue making false statements about us,” the mother of the girl said.
She reminded the pair that her daughter was still a minor and brushed off statements by Choi that he had evidence breast implants had been inserted into the girl.
“They talk about evidence of this operation, so if they have it just show it,” the girl’s mother said.
May Myat Noe told the press conference that she was under constant pressure to escort Korean business tycoons in order to find funding to launch her singing career and to undergo ‘head to toe’ cosmetic surgery. She also said pageant organisers had tried to force her mother to leave the country and that this was one reason the pair fled with the help of an unnamed Myanmar national residing in the country.
Supertalent of the World Inc, a South Korean firm, runs the pageant. The firm’s board of directors consists, according to its website, of only one person: Thomas Zilliacus. Zilliacus, a former top executive at Nokia, is also chairman and CEO of YuuZoo Corporation, an e-commerce firm based in Singapore. YuuZoo entered a partnership with the pageant last year to brand it globally and create an e-commerce social network that would aggregate all web pages to one URL to help “monetise” the pageant and its contestants.
