Beauty queen gets to keep her crown, say organisers

Compiled by C. ARUNO and FATIMAH ZAINAL

THE winner of the recent Miss Asia Pageant Malaysia 2023 will retain her crown after pageant organisers claimed there was not enough evidence to conclude that she was a “bully” after her accusers declined to step forward and provide proof, reported Sin Chew Daily.

Asia TV released a statement on Monday on its investigation into 23-year-old Luwe Xin Hui (pic) who had been accused of bullying her schoolmates while at secondary school.

It was reported that right after Luwe was announced the pageant’s winner on Sept 24, ATV’s Instagram was flooded with comments from netizens claiming to be Luwe’s victims.

They alleged that during secondary school, Luwe and her friends would slap them, lock them in school toilets and even pour water into their school bags.

The pageant organiser contacted two of her alleged victims but claimed that both declined to provide further information on Luwe’s alleged misdeeds.

“The investigations into accusations of Luwe being a bully on social media have concluded.

“Asia TV is unable to proceed without further information,” the statement read.

It said it will therefore ignore all such baseless accusations.

However, it admitted that Luwe was indeed expelled from school for disciplinary issues.

“She has paid the price for her actions. Being the organiser, we do not see such actions (her disciplinary issues) warrant her being called a ‘bully’.

“There is insufficient evidence to conclude that her actions were considered ‘bullying’,” it said.

It was earlier reported that Luwe beat 14 other contestants to win the crown.

She will represent Malaysia in the finals at Shanghai, China at the end of this year.

> A woman in Kuching, Sarawak pretended to be popular Chinese actress Zhao Wei repeatedly just to dine for free, reported Sin Chew Daily.

The incident was recounted by a food critic, Ah Ong, who saw the woman several times at his friend’s restaurant in Kuching.

According to Ah Ong, the woman would finish her meal but would tell the restaurant operator that she was Zhao Wei.

She even took out her phone and showed a photo of Zhao Wei’s role in Shaolin Soccer and claimed she could help promote the eatery.

However, the operator refused the woman’s offer and insisted that even if she was Zhao Wei, she would still have to pay.

Ah Ong said that he has seen the woman at the shop on four occasions, where she pretended to be Zhao Wei three times.

The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.