User:Mauriziok/Miss Grand

Miss Grand is a beauty pageant franchise based in Thailand. It was founded in 2013 by media personality Nawat Itsaragrisil, and consists of the annual national pageant Miss Grand Thailand, as well as the international competition Miss Grand International, to which participating rights are licensed to organizers in other countries.

The current Miss Grand International titleholder is Abena Appiah of the United States, who was crowned on 27 March 2021 at Show DC Hall in Bangkok, Thailand making her the first woman from the United States to win the crown.

History
The Miss Grand franchise was established in 2013 by Nawat Itsaragrisil, a television host and producer who had previously served as producer of the beauty pageant Miss Thailand World for BEC-Tero (owner of the television network Channel 3) for seven years until 2012. He also served as a national director of Miss Earth Thailand. After ending his role with BEC-Tero, Nawat subsequently established his own pageant, launching Miss Grand Thailand in 2013 in partnership with Channel 7. He envisioned the beauty pageant as an entertainment business, aiming to create spectacular live television events attracting large viewership and to open up opportunities for the winners to pursue careers in the entertainment industry. In 2016, Miss Grand Thailand began franchising the provincial competitions to individual organizers, who would name 77 provincial titleholders to compete in the national pageant. In 2020, the pageant was dropped by Channel 7 and switched to broadcasting on One 31 instead. Under Channel 7, the pageant was the most popular in Thailand in terms of television viewership, with ratings ranging from 1.479 to 1.886 during 2017 to 2019. (It received ratings of 1.886 compared to Miss Universe Thailand's 1.581 in 2017, the last year the latter was broadcast on Channel 3.) The figure dropped to 0.750 in 2020, after it switched to One 31. (Miss Universe Thailand achieved ratings of 0.765 that year, under its new broadcaster PPTV.)

The winner of Miss Grand Thailand is the country's representative to the international competition Miss Grand International, which was also launched in 2013. The pageant features contestants selected by licensees in each country. The first three competitions were held in Thailand, while subsequent events have also taken place overseas, beginning in 2016. In 2020, the pageant was scheduled to be held on October 25, 2020 in Venezuela but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization decided to postpone the 8th edition of the pageant to 2021 and move the venue to Bangkok, Thailand.

Resignation
Since the establishment of the contest, there was one case of resignation from her title when 2015 Miss Grand International winner Anea Garcia from Rhode Island, who later placed third in the Miss USA 2015 pageant but represented another country (Dominican Republic) in the Miss Grand International. She stepped down from her reign and was replaced by first runner-up Claire Elizabeth Parker from Australia in which the contest cited "with immediate effect, Miss Anea Garcia will step down from her position as Miss Grand International 2015 due to unable to fulfill and follow the contractual agreement with Miss Grand International Organization." The organization further stated, "her studies were in the way, making it very hard for us to schedule her activities." Garcia was interviewed by The Providence Journal and stated that she resigned since "her safety was in jeopardy when she was sexually assaulted in South Sudan while representing the organization and [they] showed no concern about the incident" after she informed the organizers. The Miss Grand International later claimed that Garcia was "dethroned" for being "demanding and disrespectful" and for taking an "inappropriate photo while wearing the crown with a revealing slit in her dress in the upper leg-crotch area," as opposed to the organization's initial press release that she "stepped down."

Parker, who succeeded Anea Garcia as Miss Grand International 2015 after her resignation, was later stripped off from her title in February 2019, almost four years after her reign ended and the organization released a statement that she's no longer be addressed to as Miss Grand International 2015 when she decided to take part in a major national pageant title, Miss Universe Australia 2019 a preliminary of one of the Big Four international beauty pageants, Miss Universe.

Fat shaming by organizers
In 2016, Miss Grand International drew criticism after fat shaming Miss Iceland, Arna Ýr Jónsdóttir that "she's too fat and needed to lose weight" prior to the finals of Miss Grand International 2016 held in Las Vegas on October 25, 2016. Jónsdóttir a former member of the Icelandic national athletics team was given a spot in the top 10 of the competition, but she declined. She stated, "I decided to stand by myself and women in general, I'm not going to have anyone telling me that I am too fat to look good on stage." She eventually dropped from the pageant few days prior to the coronation. The pageant organizers then withheld her passport after she withdrew from the contest but she eventually retrieved her passport back from the organizers and said, "they [organizers] tried extortion, they threatened me by saying, you can get your passport back if you pay 3,000 dollars."

Cultural appropriation
The pageant stirred another controversy when the organizers allowed Emily Delgado, who represented the United States in the Miss Grand International 2019 to parade in a Native American-inspired costume with headdress and walked on the stage with stereotypical gestures in which she drew ire in the social media for cultural appropriation. The mockery of the Native values was initially confirmed and denounced by Ashley Callingbull of Alberta’s Enoch Cree Nation, Canada's first Indigenous woman to win the Mrs. Universe title in 2015.

Editions
The following is a list of all Miss Grand International Organization editions from the founding of each pageant.

Miss Grand International
The following is a list of Miss Grand International pageant edition and information, from its inception in 2013.

Miss Grand Thailand
The following is a list of Miss Grand Thailand pageant edition and information, from its inception in 2013.

Titleholders and runners-up
The following is a list of all Miss Grand International Organization titleholders and runners-up from the founding of each pageant.

Miss Grand International
This table shows the top-five finalists of each competition, from its inception in 2013.
 * Notes

Miss Grand Thailand
This table shows the top-five finalists of each competition, from its inception in 2013.
 * Notes