Cheating, screaming and firings: here are the 7 scandals that mark the Miss France contest

Sure, a beauty pageant is the perfect place to watch drama. We summarize for you the most egregious door slams, aberrant decisions and bickering from our famous Miss France contest.

Valérie Bègue unworthy of Geneviève de Fontenay

It is certainly the scandal we remember best, probably also because it involves Geneviève de Fontenay and who better than her to remind us how the Miss contests are bastions of sexism but also prudishness?

Elected Miss France 2008, Valérie Bègue is summoned a few months after her enthronement to return the crown. The reason ? The young lady has contravened a drastic condition of the regulation which requires the candidate to commit herself by participating “Never posed or exhibited in ambiguous clothes or poses, partially or totally naked. “. However, the photos of the young woman in her underwear for the brand Pardon! they emerge shortly after her election and would be too suggestive (she appears in a very Christian and Mylène-farmeresque position in a swimming pool, or she licks what looks like condensed milk on a branch). It is too much for the chaste eyes of Geneviève de Fontenay that she summons Valérie Bégue to return her tiara. The Miss clings to it and, supported by the public, she ends up keeping the title but she has been deprived of participation in international competitions.

A young lady who cheats?

Chloé Mortaud succeeds the incredible reign of Valérie Bègue. But before becoming Miss France 2009, she is also at the center of a rigged voting scandal: while Chloé Mortaud is still only Miss Albigensian Midi-Pyrénées, her first runner-up, Marine Beaury, contests the vote and denounces cheating. She would still retain the title and win the national beauty pageant a few months later. But Marine Beaury doesn’t stop there and she files a fraud complaint in order to simply cancel the election. Justice eventually fired her and Chloé Mortaud kept her title.

National Miss is still struggling to convince

It was in 2010 that Geneviève de Fontenay slammed the door of Miss France society with a leak and an accident. At issue is the case of Kelly Bochenko, Miss Paris 2010, who was accused of taking pornographic photos (Kelly Bochenko has since claimed that these photos were taken in a private context and above all that they were extorted from her to be published in a magazine without your consent). It is also probable that Geneviève de Fontenay is beginning to no longer be very in tune with the competition that Sylvie Tellier intends to free from the mothballs… a new competition. , Miss Prestige National who will later become Miss Excellence France. Yet, from a media point of view, the Lady in the Hat contest still struggles to seduce broadcasters, and therefore the general public…

A tattoo, you release

Disqualified… for a tattoo. Elected Miss Martinique in 2017, Jade Voltigeur logically had to participate in the Miss France contest a few months later. If the local committee authorized him to hide her tattoo with foundation (a small hummingbird on her shoulder blade), the national committee does not authorize this kind of subterfuge. It is therefore impossible to compete, given that the regulation provides that tattoos are prohibited. Jade Voltigeur was finally replaced by Laure-Anaïs Abidal for the Miss France 2018 election.

Hide that breast…

“It is not the cause that you defend the problem, but only a matter of regulations that we apply to the letter”. The topless photos as part of a campaign to fight breast cancer during Pink October will therefore be enough for Anaëlle Guimbi to be disqualified from the Miss Guadeloupe contest in 2020 because ” contrary to the values ​​of Miss France “. Are we really surprised, so much the sexualization of the breast is the order of the day? Sylvie Tellier tried to catch up, but too little too late: “In fact, we just ran out of time and information to appreciate the context. I regret “ he said, inviting Anaëlle Guimbi to try her luck the following year. The latter did not answer.

When a young lady repairs Marine Le Pen

“I would like to have a female president, I would like to have a French mother, one who brings people together, who protects, with the sensitivity of a woman. » These words are those of a former Miss, Delphine Wespiser, crowned in 2012, and with this idea that smacks of conservatism she affirms her support for Marine Le Pen without batting an eye. On the set of Don’t touch My TV in April 2022, Delphine Wespiser then takes up the cause of the RN presidential candidate, on the basis that she has distanced herself from Le Pen-père’s National Front. Proof that the demonization of the far-right party has worked wonders.

Refusal to the Miss France committee

Bring out the popcorn: When Alexia Laroche-Joubert and Sylvie Tellier face off in public, the discomfort is palpable but still a little tasty. In the middle of a press conference in the fall of 2022, the former head of Star Academy claims that Miss France 2002 never produced the pageant, to the chagrin of Sylvie Tellier, which she corrects coldly and in front of an audience of journalists: ” Me ? Didn’t I work on this show? I can’t let you tell me. I worked on this show for seventeen years! ». Alexia Laroche-Joubert apologizes but the atmosphere remains frozen, while Sylvie Tellier leaves the commission because she is called to other projects. Note that she has not hidden her disagreements with some recent changes to the rules made by Alexia Laroche-Joubert, such as those to allow mothers to participate, as well as trans women (only with their change of marital status), or finally the fact that I’ve already posed naked… but only for “the good cause”.

Photo credit: Miss France Official (capture)