After the Mister International 2022 contest last October 30, 2022, a memo was released the following day reporting that all operations of the organization would be taken over by the owner of Mister Global, Pradit Pradinunt, with Korean Jeon Jeonghun as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Filipino Nicholo Paolo "Pawee" Ventura as Chief Operating Officer (COO). They claimed their long standing close friendship with the departed original owner, Alan Sim along with a written document dated March 19, 2022 gave them the right to take over the organization.
However, on November 1, 2022, Atty. Manuel Deldio issued a notarized counterstatement debunking the claims of Pradinunt et al. He maintained that ownership remains in his hands, and that Pradinunt's claims are fraudulent. He later claimed that Alan Sim had personally warned him of the Machiavellian machinations of Pradinunt's camp, and that he should take all measures to protect this pageant's legacy.
Hence the Mister International organization has been split into two camps. The Pradinunt faction is holding the pageant with a final on September 17 in Bangkok, Thailand. The Deldio faction is staging it here in Manila, Philippines with final on October 20, 2023. The Pradinunt camp decided to generate a new logo, and promoted their edition of the pageant as the start of a "New Era". The Deldio camp retained the logo that has been in place since 2017. The Pradinunt camp has the support of previous winners like Venezuela's Jose Ameer Paredes (2013) and Vietnam's Trinh Bao (2018), and retained the crowned winner, Dominican Republic's Manu Franco, while Deldio's camp elevated the 1st runner-up to Manu, India's Lukanand Kshetrimayum, as the reigning titleholder.
The Pradinunt camp seized and maintained the social media accounts of Mister International, forcing the Deldio camp to create their own social media accounts by adding "The" to the pageant moniker. In August, three popular pageant sites, Missosology, Critical Beauty, and Global Beauties issued a statement recognizing the Pradinunt camp as the legitimate successor to Alan Sim's Mister International, and reference websites like Wikipedia followed suit. Take note though that Missosology is owned and operated by Pawee Ventura, who is COO of Pradinunt's organization, so take note of vested interests in this case. Then, the social media accounts of the Mister International Philippines and Mister International sites under Deldio's camp were disabled due to "copyright infringement". And it is not only the organization-related social media that was disabled, but the personal social media sites of personnel like Deldio himself, and most galling of all, the esteemed veteran pageant blogger Norman Tinio, because he is also involved with Deldio's organization as Communications Director.
I consider Norman Tinio a good friend, an esteemed colleague all the way back to the Mabuhay Beauties days. in the early 2000s. In all my encounters with him, he is a paragon of ethics and integrity, so that is why I'm so outraged and saddened how he was attacked by the other party like this. I join with blogsite Sashes & Scripts in decrying this lowbrow move over an esteemed pageant personality. At least it seems he's created a new account and is back again on social media--hope no-one puts him down again this time.
These kinds of fission and controversies isn't anything new. It made me recall Critical Beauty's 2012 three-part article on the recently departed Genevieve de Fontenay*1, a searing exposé on how Genevieve and her partner*2 Louis Poirot de Fontenay wrested the ownership of the Comité Miss France from its founder, Guy Rinaldo via illegal means, but still garnered support from the media. Even with the presence of such exposés, to the general public the still prestigious Miss France pageant is intractably linked with the Fontenays and successors designated by Guy Rinaldo just faded away as lesser footnotes. I wonder if Rafa Delfin, Critical Beauty director and writer of the article, ever reflected on this story before throwing his support to the Pradinunt camp?
*1..She passed away on August 1, 2023.at the age of 90--less than 30 days before turning 91.
*2 The main source of the article, Antoine de Villejoie's two books discussing the history of Miss France, reported that Genevieve Mulmann and Louis Poirot never formally married even if they presented themselves as a married couple by legally adopting the aristocratic "de Fontenay" surname.
This situation also made me recall the ownership dispute of the Shalamar trademark, the group that gave us danceable R&B hits like "A Night to Remember" and "Second Time Around". Soul Train booking agent Dick Griffey developed the name of the group and with the show's creator and host Don Cornelius, hired the members to form the group. Initial lineups involve a revolving set of performers before they settled down with Jody Watley, Jeffrey Daniel and Howard Hewett (from 1979-1983) the former two originally dancers from the show. Griffey took a tight rein of ownership to the band name even after the band broke up in 1991 that when the aforementioned trio reunited in 1996 to perform on Babyface's cover of their own song "This is for the Lover in You", the trio had to be credited individually instead of being able to use the band name. Dick Griffey passed away in 2009, and Jody learned that the trademark to the band name was open, so she registered and was granted ownership of the name. Now, Dick Griffey's daughter, Carolyn, disputed Jody's ownership, claiming that since she's Dick's daughter she should inherit the ownership of the band name but the US courts ruled in Jody's favor as Carolyn couldn't provide proof that Dick turned over the rights to the band's name to her. You would presume that since Shalamar is an American band, the name ownership is applicable across all territories. But it turns out it is not the case, as Carolyn and her mother, Carrie Lucas, were able to obtain rights to the name in the UK and the European Union. Jody formed her group with dancer/choreographer Rosero McCoy and singer Nate Allen Smith, and added the term "Reloaded" after the band name, so they are known as Shalamar Reloaded, though they haven't been active after 2016. Carolyn performs with Jeffrey Daniel and Howard Hewett and are recognized at simply Shalamar and continue to tour and perform to this day, concentrating mainly in Europe and Asia as they cannot perform in the US under that name because of Jody's ownership. Here, the Pradinunt and Deldio of this tale is dependent on your perspective if Jody deserves the ownership of the band's name due to her indelible contributions to the band's success or you think Carolyn is worthy because she's Dick Griffey's daughter. Wikipedia seems to be on Carolyn's side in this argument.
One might presume that I am denouncing the Pradinunt camp. Yes, I object to many of their approaches, but I'm also cognizant of the fact that we live in a society that often take a blind eye to endemic corruption, electing leaders based on popularity and propaganda instead of integrity, where in the reality competition series Survivor a schemer like Richard Hatch prevails over more likeable contestants, where in fiction a principled man like Ned Stark would be beheaded early in the Song of Ice and Fire and a devious schemer like Cersei Lannister is able to prevail at least almost to the very end (if we base it on the HBO TV adaptation Game of Thrones, as George R.R. Martin has not yet completed the book series yet). Knowing that we live in this type of world made me occasionally question if it is worth it for me to carry on existing in this world. Anyway, to Pradinunt and company's credit, we must also acknowledge that they have significant know-how in effectively publicizing an international male pageant and attracting significant followers organically, ultimately sustaining a pageant's viability. Even in Alan Sim's lifetime the Mister International pageant was presented with a highly sexually charged approach, and Pradinunt's camp's presentation is very much in the same spirit as the original, so since they remain very true to the spirit of the original pageant, it is understandable why many would easily side with this camp and recognize it as the rightful successor. My only concern is that so far there is no true distinction between this pageant and Mister Global--both seem to employ the same criteria in selecting their winners.
The Deldio camp, with Norman Tinio in tow, wants to emphasize integrity and loftier ideals, which was indeed a stated intention in Alan Sim's day, though those ideals sometimes fall by the wayside and were compromised. I'm also concerned that with the Pradinunt camp having the upper hand with popularity, publicity and production values, the noble intentions of the Deldio camp could result in an implosion like what happened with the Gentlemen of the Philippines pageant--it had a promising start in 2016, but it seems to have imploded after staging a second edition the following year, as that group struggled in attracting sponsors and their production values lack the sleekness and polish already delivered by rival organizers. Hope the Deldio camp has learned lessons from that shocking fall so they will have a fighting chance to assert their stated rights and maybe even prevail over Pradinunt.
I will cover the Pradinunt camp's version of Mister International, as the publicity and polish is just too undeniable alongside the caliber of contestants it attracted. I also intend to cover Deldio's edition of this pageant, as long as they manage to have at least 28 competing countries show up in our shores--for now I'll make the distinction by adding "The" to Deldio's version of the pageant when I cover it. It's interesting to see who will end up yielding in the end.
JUST ME!
JOSEPH
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