The first Indigenous winner of the Miss Universe Canada beauty pageant and a host in this year’s competition is speaking out after two contestants donned Indigenous-themed regalia for the costume portion of the contest.
Earlier in the week, there was a costume portion of the competition, which was intended to showcase Canada’s traditions. One contestant wore an Indigenous headdress, a sacred item adorned with eagle feathers that is traditionally gifted or earned. Another contestant wore mukluks, which are boots invented by Indigenous peoples and typically made with animal fur and skin.
“My jaw kind of dropped,” Ashley Callingbull, an Indigenous model who was crowned Miss Universe Canada in 2024, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview Tuesday. “I just couldn’t believe that it was real. In my mind, I’m thinking they had an Indigenous winner, me, two years ago. This can’t be happening.”
She reached out to the competition’s director, Sonny Borrelli, to ask who approved the regalia, and stressed that guidelines were needed to verify whether contestants were Indigenous.
Soon after, Miss Universe Canada posted a statement, saying they “are actively implementing a comprehensive Costume Guide.”
Still, Callingbull felt that wasn’t going far enough. While on stage for the final part of the competition, the teleprompter stopped working for Borrelli’s introduction to the show.
“So I thought, ‘OK, perfect timing, let’s do this right now,’” she said. “It was like creator wanted me to speak at that moment. So I told everyone to turn the music down, and even if I felt like I was being cut off a bit, I needed to keep going.”
Callingbull decided to go off script and use her stage time to speak out against what had happened, as well as give Borrelli a chance to apologize.
“You don’t wear someone else’s ethnic background and parade around in it, and make a mockery,” she said. “I think the most offensive part about it was that they didn’t do the research. They didn’t educate themselves. They just thought, ‘Oh, I’m going to buy this off Etsy and just think that this is legit.’”
Callingbull said family members of one of the contestants who wore the regalia reached out to her to say sorry.
“They apologized to me and said they didn’t even know that she was in the pageant, and they didn’t know she was even going to do that, and they felt so bad,” she said. “So, they knew better.”
While Callingbull says that it’s not her responsibility to educate others, she will call out what she feels is wrong.
“After (the final competition) a lot of the contestants said, ‘You’re really brave to just stop a live show,’” she said. “I just wanted to show girls how important it is to use your voice, and even if someone tries to silence you, you keep going.”
With files from CTV News’ Christl Dabu
