Summers, 24, was captured on video discussing Miss Cambodia Rern Sinat and Miss Vietnam H’Hen Nie. The footage was originally posted as an Instagram Live video on Miss Colombia Valeria Morales’ account on Tuesday. Although the video is no longer available on Instagram, social media users saved a copy of it.
Summers is heard saying “She’s so cute and she pretends to know so much English and then you ask her a question after having a whole conversation with her and she goes — ” then Summers is seen nodding and smiling in a way that seemed to mimic H’Hen before laughing.
Summers, Morales and Miss Australia Francesca Hung also spoke about Miss Cambodia Rern Sinat in the video.
“Miss Cambodia is here and doesn’t speak any English,” Summers said, “and not a single person here speaks her language. Can you imagine? Francesca said that it would be very isolating and I think yes, and just confusing all the time.”
Summers’ comments caused a massive backlash on Twitter, where users were particularly enraged by her words, noting that the assumption that everyone should be able to speak English is ignorant and that the future Miss Universe should not be “an ambassador of bullying.”
Could miss USA speak any foreign language? It would be an asset to her. One should not tell another what language to speak. America does not have a national language, so have a seat!
On Thursday, Summers posted an apology on her Instagram account, saying “in a moment where I intended to admire the courage of a few of my sisters, I said something that I now realize can be perceived as not respectful, and I apologize.”
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Miss Australia Hung, who’s half Chinese and half Irish-Australian, also told Daily Mail that the video was “misconstrued” and she and the other girls were “merely saying it must be even more difficult at times not to have a single other delegate being able to speak [Khmer] … which in fact, makes Nat [Miss Cambodia] an even stronger contender [to win the title].”