PUBLISHED ONAugust 15, 2023 5:39 AMByYeo Shu HuiIn the world of beauty pageants, becoming more beautiful than the last picture you took would immediately make others speculate that you had plastic surgery.
And that is no different for former Miss Singapore contestant Michelle Poa, who is now one of the 16 finalists vying for Miss Hong Kong 2023.
The 22-year-old, who is a Singapore Permanent Resident, has her looks becoming a topic of discussion since the start of the competition as netizens realised that she looks different from the photos taken when she was competing in the Miss Singapore beauty pageant in 2018 and Miss Chinese International in 2019.
Addressing speculations that she had plastic surgery in an interview in July, Michelle, who was also dubbed as Hong Kong actress Myolie Wu's lookalike, denied the rumour, saying that her features are all natural.
She added in the interview that she had lost weight due to exercising regularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In an interview by Hong Kong publication ST Headlines yesterday (Aug 14), Michelle again addressed netizens' comments that she looks more beautiful.
She said: "Actually, I am very happy because people felt that I look more beautiful and that's why they thought that I had [plastic surgery]… I think it is a good thing because it also means that the makeup skills are very good… I think hairstyle is also very important. Since I changed my hairstyle, I think that I have become more photogenic."
It seems like other Miss Hong Kong contestants have their own drama to resolve too.
For Zora Chen, 26, a comment that she made on an Instagram post sparked off an online spat with netizens.
On Aug 3, a video was posted on the Miss Hong Kong pageant Instagram page, filming the contestants' cute expressions and interactions. Zora was filmed in the midst of her eating and when the interviewer asked her a question, she rested her face on her palm before replying.
Commenting on herself, Zora wrote in the comments section in simplified Mandarin: "It's so ugly, thank you." The comment has since been deleted.
Netizens replied to her comment, criticising her for being insensitive, having low EQ and also not writing in traditional Mandarin, with Zora confronting them later in the comments section.
In a subsequent interview with Hong Kong publication HK01 on Aug 5, she addressed the situation, saying that everyone misunderstood her tone in the first comment that she posted, as she was just having a friendly banter with the staff who took the video, who is someone she knows.
Zora also admitted that she is not good at Cantonese, which resulted in the misunderstanding. When asked if she is afraid of being attacked by netizens, she said that she "doesn't mind" it.
However, netizens did not seem to leave her alone after that as Zora seemed to still receive negative comments from them.
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The pageant's official told HK01 that they have communicated to the contestants that they have to "take care of their own image" during the pageant and that the officials are unable to control how the contestants interact with netizens on social media.
"I think the contestants are younger this time round and more direct. She didn't mean it," the official added.
Since then, Zora has deleted or hidden all her Instagram posts, after making an Instagram Story update on Aug 13 of a conversation with her friend, asking her what she should do about the misunderstanding and the attacks that she had received.
Her friend replied to her with: "No matter what you do, they will say that it is your fault, so you do not have to prove yourself."
The Miss Hong Kong 2023 pageant will be held on Aug 27.
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This article has been edited for clarity.