A beauty pageant finalist has been disqualified after the 22-year-old model made a startling revelation.
The pageant's name is Miss Virtual Kazakhstan. Arina Aliyeva had reached the final of the online-only competition after her photo received over 2,000 public votes. Arina was then crowned 'Miss Virtual Shymkent' in capital of the South Kazakhstan Region. However, it was a short-lived victory for Arina, who was soon stripped of her title.
The title was then passed on to Aikerim Temirkhanova, who received 1,975 votes. Arina was denied the title due to a shocking revelation about herself after reaching the finals. And that was, she is a MAN!
Arina's real name is Illay Dyagilev, and he fooled the beauty pageant's organisers and judges by posing as Arina. He even beat 4000 applicants to reach the last stage of the competition. Illay admitted that he was not a woman two days after reaching the final.
He said the persona of Arina Aliyeva was "a project of my team". He explains by saying that a lot of girls believe that appearance is the main thing and it is a hard job to be beautiful.
"But I argued with my friends that even a man could pass as a beautiful woman," he has been quoted saying by the BBC.
He adds that he has been in the fashion industry since he was 17, and has been posing as a model and creating images. So it was easy for him to transform into the look of a female model. A photographer, hairstylist and makeup artist were all it took to turn Illay into Arina.
Illay adds that he himself was surprised when he reached the finals. He says he decided to reveal his true identity when he reached the finals and realised he had gone too far.
The Mirror reports that a similar incident has occurred last year, when a Russian male model, Andrey Nagorny, 20, posed as a lingerie model to win the entire show. He was stripped of his prize after the event organisers discovered the truth.
