She’s giving up her title.
Rather than receiving the royal treatment after winning a worldwide beauty pageant in 2024, Rachel Gupta claims she was treated like second-class citizen — abandoned in a “dilapidated” house sans food, phone, money or security.
“The whole time that I was working with Miss Grand International, the last seven months, I was constantly harassed, manipulated, ignored and left to fend for myself,” a sobbing Gupta, 21, from India, revealed while virally renouncing her royal status on YouTube. “These have been the hardest few months of my life.”
Deeming Miss Grand International as a breeding ground for “toxicity and negativity,” Gupta aired out her grievances with the Thailand-based beauty pageant to over 1.4 million viewers in a 56-minute tell-all.
In response, Miss Grand International has publicly revoked Gupta’s crown, alleging she failed to “fulfill her assigned duties, [engaged] in external projects without prior approval from the organization, and [refused] to participate in the scheduled trip to Guatemala.”
However, Gupta begs to differ.
After being crowned queen in October, the Gen Z claims MGI executives, with a figurative “gun to the head,” forced her to sign a “one-sided” contract, in which she blindly agreed to comply with all of the organization’s requests.
But she claims the brand failed to fulfill its promises to provide her with a monthly stipend, penthouse lodging and “basic amenities.”
“Immediately after winning, they moved me into a cramped hotel room, where all my suitcases couldn’t open properly because there wasn’t enough space,” Gupta carped on camera. “Then, they shifted me to a dilapidated house which was way on the outside of the city. I had no car. They didn’t give me anyway of getting around.”
“I was stuck in the house until they decided that they needed me for something.”
Virtually stranded without sustenance or cooking supplies, Gupta, a vegetarian, was forced to purchase herself a Thai cellphone for ordering takeout. Surviving on nothing but fast-food negatively altered her figure, she said.
“How am I supposed to stay healthy or take care of myself when I can’t eat home cooked food? It was so bad,” the siren groaned, adding that she was also denied access to a gym and workout equipment. “Most days I’d end up eating whatever junk I had or I would order food. But because it’s so far away, the drivers would end up canceling.”
She blames MGI for the struggle.
“It’s their responsibility. I’m with that organization,” said Gupta, admitting that the ordeal rendered her depressed. “They should at least make sure that they’re giving their queen food to eat.”
However, instead of showing concern for her well-being, she says the powers-that-be were only concerned about her changing waistline.
“They were hounding me, constantly talking about my weight and my body,” Gupta cried. “They sent a representative to me, and he just comes up to me and starts pinching me in places and he’s like, ‘Oh, you need to lose weight here. You need to lose weight here.’”
“It’s so embarrassing,” she wept. “It makes you feel so small and so bad.”
Gupta then explained that she’d reported a potential robbery to MGI organizers, hoping the honchos would boost security at the so-called slummy house. However, she claims her cries for help fell on deaf ears.
“I realized, in that moment, that these people will never support me,” said the tearful head-turner. “As long as I’m there to smile at their events, keep my body super skinny the way they like — they don’t care if I live or die.”
“I was completely my own.”
Throughout her reign as Miss MGI, Gupta says she was barred from participating in advocacy and charity work, but bullied into selling “cheap and tacky” products on TikTok for the pageant’s financial gains.
“They are cold-hearted business people. They just want to extract your use, make money off of you and that it is,” Gupta asserted.
“The other thing they care about is how you look,” she continued, accusing company higher-ups of spewing, “body-shaming, disgusting, deplorable comments,” about their competitors.
“It made me feel sick,” said Gupta. “I was ready to throw up.”
In MGI’s official statement, shared to Instagram on May 28, the organization directly responded to each of their ex-star’s allegations. It also asked that its crown be returned to headquarters “within 30 days.”
Gupta is among a growing number of beauty pageant titleholders who’ve recently sashayed away from the winner’s sash.
Both Miss USA and Miss Teen USA 2024 stepped down from their respective positions due to alleged “bullying” by the organization’s CEO. The Miss Teen USA runner up, too, turned down the honor amid the chaos.
Gupta hopes other pageant queen wannabes think twice before signing up for a potential setup.
“Even if you win, you’ll be completely on your own,” she warned. “You will not get any love or special of treatment or support from this organization.”
“The Miss Grand International organization [does not] care about you.“
