Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach has finally broken her silence to tackle the rumors that she apparently did not want Catriona Gray to win Miss Universe crown because she felt ‘threatened’ by her.
Pia said there was no truth to those claims in an interview with Gulf News in Dubai. She also said that she was even in Thailand on the day Catriona was crowned Miss Universe. She said, "I was there in Thailand when she won. I was actually like, almost in the front row. It's so nice to see it from the audience's point of view because I've been there as a contestant, I've been there as a judge, but it was my first time to be there as an audience member where I'm literally there just to experience it. I don't have any responsibility to judge the girls, to write anything down, to be too critical. I'm just there to enjoy.”
"People would say to me before, 'She's threatened because she doesn't want another Filipina from the Philippines to win.' But once you're there, all of that goes out of the window because you just want to raise the flag," Pia added.
Wurtzbach also shared how her life has been after her reign as Miss Universe in 2015. "After you win, you got to work twice as hard to stay relevant. The peak is the win, and then the reign. After that, you got to work twice as hard to keep yourself up there, to keep yourself relevant and in the public eye," she said.
Pia also tries to stay relevant by continuing the work she is passionate about. Wurtzbach was in Dubai to receive her Woman of the Year award from the luxury magazine Xpedition, making her the second Filipino to win the award. For its first edition in September 2019, XAGA gave the award to Catriona Gray.