Miss Universe Denies Signing A Contract
By Irina Titova
Staff Writer
|
|
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Fyodorova denies that she signed an agreement with the pageant's organizers.
|
Oksana Fyodorova, the St. Petersburg law-enforcement student who was crowned Miss Universe in May, only to surrender the title last week over scheduling conflicts, said at a press conference here on Friday that she had not signed any contracts with contest organizers detailing her expected duties and schedule. She also said that her reason for stepping down as Miss Universe was not, as has been rumored, due to the fact that she is pregnant. "The contract was in English and nobody gave me a Russian copy. So, I didn't sign the contract," Fyodorova said. Dressed in black leather pants and a black blouse, she added: "As you can see, I haven't gained any weight. I can also tell you that I didn't get married, and I'm not pregnant." Fyodorova said that her chief reasons for stepping down were her discomfort with some of the duties that came with the crown and that the organizers would not allow her to miss certain events in order to spend more time completing work on her thesis. "The first instance that prompted my decision was the interview on the Howard Stern Show," Fyodorova said. "Nobody warned me about the kind of questions I would be asked." According to Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, the shock-talk radio host asked Fyodorova a number of obnoxious questions regarding her sexual preferences and other intimate details. Fyodorova was accompanied at the press conference by representatives from the St. Petersburg Police Academy, who supported her decision. "Oksana made her choice, not in favor of a star modeling career, but in favor of becoming a scientist and teacher," said Viktor Salnikov, the head of the academy, where Fyodorova is a post-graduate student. "It is, of course, unusual for a young woman to make such a choice, but she did it. This is her mentality, her philosophy of life." Salnikov said that Fyodorova made the choice herself, and that nobody could have deprived her of the Miss Universe title, if she had wanted to keep it. Fyodorova said that neither she nor the organizers of the prestigious pageant have any outstanding financial claims on each other because the "agreement on my resignation of the title was mutual." She also said that she would not take court action against the newspapers that said she had gained weight since the pageant and was pregnant. "I'm not a scandalous person," Fyodorova said. While the former Miss Universe said she didn't think of the possible consequences of her decision for future Russian contestants, Viktor Zemskov, the director of the Miss St. Petersburg contest, which Fyodorova won in 1999, said that, in the future, Russian participants may face difficulties taking part in Miss Universe pageants. "The organizers of the Miss Russia contest, at least, will face some complications," he said. Fyodorova did say that, despite the fact that she didn't foresee any difficulties, she advised future contestants to acquaint themselves with their duties beforehand, and balance them against what they want to achieve personally. She also expressed surprise that, after she won the title, there was no official reception organized for her in Russia. She said that she had felt uneasy when attending this year's Miss Italy contest instead of the one in Russia. Generally, the winner from the previous year presents the new crown, but Fyodorova says that she was not invited to the Russian event. She said that she now plans to finish her thesis before working as an instructor either at the police academy or some other police institution.
|
Перевести на русский
Print this article
