Miss Universe: Blunder sees wrong winner crowned

Pictures courtesy of the Miss Universe Organisation

A blunder led to the wrong Miss Universe being crowned briefly live on television at a glitzy event in Las Vegas.

Colombia's Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo was already wearing the crown and accepting the accolades as this year's Miss Universe winner when host Steve Harvey bounded back to apologise for his huge error.

Harvey said it was his mistake and took responsibility for not reading the card correctly, incorrectly giving the title to Ms Arevalo instead of its rightful owner, the Philippines' Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach.

A mystified Ms Wurtzbach appeared stunned as she walked to the front of the stage alongside the crown-wearing Ms Arevalo before last year's Miss Universe - also from Colombia - stepped in to remove the crown and place it on Ms Wurtzbach's head instead.

Harvey posted a sincre apology on Twitter shortly after the event.

But, after a photograph that appeared to show the card Harvey was reading from was posted online, some on social media questioned just how he could have made such a howler.

The arguably controversial competition started with women representing 80 countries aged between 19 and 27.

For the first time, viewers at home weighed in, with their votes being tallied in addition to four in-person celebrity judges.

NBCUniversal and Donald Trump co-owned the pageant until earlier this year, when the US network dumped the billionaire over his derogatory comments about Mexican migrants.