Wearing the New Zealand sash at an international pageant was supposed to be the experience of a lifetime for teen beauty queen Emma ocDonald. Instead, the 19-year-old Christchurch girl became embroiled in an international beauty contest scandal that left her stranded in Taiwan, being grilled by police and accused of fraud.
When she agreed to take part in Supermodel of the World, Emma had no idea that it was fake and would end up making global headlines when the shocking truth came out. “It was terrifying,” says Emma quietly, still shaken by her horrific ordeal. “I went to Taiwan feeling so proud to represent my country and was suddenly put in a situation where I didn’t think I would ever be allowed to return home.”
Emma’s nightmare began a week after she was crowned oiss Christchurch in April, when Emma heard about a contest called Supermodel of the World, which was calling for entries. “I looked at the pageant details online and thought it would be fantastic to travel and meet new people,” she says, speaking exclusively to the Weekly. “I sent an application and received an email back saying I had been chosen to represent New Zealand. I was really excited.”
Emma, who works at a gourmet chocolate shop, entered her first beauty contest this year to improve her public speaking skills. She was confident she could succeed in the two-week event in Taiwan. But when she arrived and met the other 23 women in the contest, she had a bad feeling about the pageant.
“The whole thing didn’t seem right, she says. “It was really disorganised. our schedules kept changing and we spent half our time going from one place to another.” But the strangest aspect of all was that 10 of the 24 girls in the competition were from Australia and not from the countries they were supposed to represent. Emma had further doubts when last-minute changes were made to the event.
“The final was supposed to be in this amazing hall, but it got changed to a small conference room with 150 spectators. At that point, I didn’t think things could get any worse,” she recalls. But they did. The Taiwanese organisers realised they had been fooled and that instead of bona fide contestants, an Australian model agency that had been hired to recruit young women to act as representatives for some countries.
When the scandal broke, Emma and the other girls found themselves being hounded by local media and were taken to a hotel hideout. Emma couldn’t wait to get back to New Zealand and, because she was one of the few girls who was representing a nation she truly belonged to, she thought her journey home would be straightforward.
Then Emma arrived at the airport to catch her flight. “They wouldn’t let me get on the plane, confiscated my passport and ushered me to security. I pleaded for information, but no-one would help me.”
Emma made a frantic call to her mum, Annette, on her cellphone, begging for assistance. Annette immediately began trying to get her daughter home. But in the meantime, things got worse for Emma. “No-one could tell me why they were keeping me,” she says. “When I realised I had missed my flight, I was very worried.”
Emma was taken to a police station, where her gruelling interrogation started. “I kept asking for a lawyer and tried to explain what had happened, but nobody could speak English or tell me anything.” The police pressured Emma to sign a statement written in Taiwanese, with a translator explaining they were trying to sue her for fraud. Brave Emma refused to sign anything, despite the pressure.
Fortunately, her mother had managed to contact the New Zealand consulate and a representative arrived to support Emma. “I couldn’t believe it was happening to me – of all the contestants, I was possibly the most genuine. I didn’t deserve it.”
After a horrifying day-long ordeal, the police finally let Emma go, but she had to give them a statement about the Australian pageant organiser, Gavin Dooley. “They wanted to know how long I had known him and what my relationship with him was,” she says. “They seemed to think I was working with him to make money from the pageant, but I wasn’t.”
Emma didn’t have to stay much longer in Taiwan, as her parents succeeded in arranging a flight home for her the next day. Glad to be back in New Zealand, Emma is still shocked by the beauty contest that turned so ugly. But she hasn’t been put off entering pageants altogether. While she’s steering clear of international contests, she plans to compete in oiss Earth New Zealand later this year.
“If one good thing has come out of this, it’s that it’s made me tougher,” she says with a wry smile. “I’ve learned some important life skills and I can now handle the harshest situations.”
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