Steve Harvey suffered humiliation when he announced the wrong winner at the 2015 Miss Universe pageant, and for a moment on Sunday night, it seemed as though history was repeating itself for the host.
The confusion started when Harvey revealed the results of the National Costume contest portion of the event, which took place last week.
“Here’s the look at the winner, Miss Philippines,” he said.
But shortly after he said that, the contestant standing next to him grabbed the mic and told him, “It’s not Philippines; it’s Malaysia.”
It was Miss Malaysia herself, Shweta Sekhon, who corrected him.
The moment immediately put Harvey on the defensive.
“OK, well, let me explain something to you,” he said. “I just read that in the teleprompter. Y’all got to quit doing this to me. I can read. They said … they’re trying to fix it now. See, this what they did to me back in 2015. Played me short like that. This is Malaysia. I really love this national costume of Malaysia. This is crazy.”
While Sekhon laughed it off, Harvey was clearly concerned.
After she explained the details of her costume, he said, “Whatever you said, yes. I’m scared to say your name again, because I don’t know what the hell this teleprompter (is doing.)”
But unlike the incident four years ago, when he accidentally claimed Miss Colombia was the big title holder despite the fact that Miss Philippines was the rightful winner, this time, it turned out that Harvey was right all along.
When the “Family Feud” host said, “Here’s the look at the winner, Miss Philippines,” a photo of Gazini Ganados, aka Miss Philippines, displayed on the big screen behind him. The confusion came from the fact that Miss Malaysia was onstage to show off her own ornate bridal look at the same time.
The Miss Universe Organization cleared things up with a post-show tweet that declared "(Steve Harvey) had it right."
And in a statement to NBC News, the group confirmed the following: “Miss Universe Philippines Gazini Ganados is the winner of the Miss Universe 2019 National Costume competition. As part of the broadcast, we also featured Miss Universe Malaysia Shweta Sekhon’s national costume. Miss Sekhon wasn’t aware we’d be announcing Philippines first, so she misinterpreted his intro. Mr. Harvey made a joke of it, but no mistakes regarding the national costume winner were made by him, the prompter or production.”