In less than a day, Alicia Machado made headlines again for a chain of public statements. The Venezuelan, Miss Universe 1996, made a live broadcast on social networks in which she came out to defend Fatima Bosch, current Miss Universe 2025, after the controversial interview that the Mexican granted to Carlos Adyan and Lourdes Stephen in the program Pica y se extiende on Telemundo.
In that conversation, Bosch was questioned about the criminal accusations against Raúl Rocha Cantú, co-owner of the pageant, and about other scandals surrounding the contest, which ended up causing her to cancel the rest of the activities agreed with the network for that week.
Machado, who has recounted on many occasions how difficult her own reign was due to conflicts with Donald Trump, recalled that she also lived through years of questioning and criticism, and called for Bosch to stop being “lynched” by the media.
During this live broadcast, the former queen assured that she was never a “lady-in-waiting” when she worked under Trump’s ownership in Miss Universe and launched a phrase that unleashed a gale of reactions: she affirmed that “the last two Venezuelan Miss Universes” would have played that role.
Although in that broadcast she did not mention names, media and users interpreted that she was referring to Dayana Mendoza (Miss Universe 2008) and another former Venezuelan queen, based on the religious allusions she made when talking about one of them.
Machado’s words were picked up and amplified by different portals, which highlighted the direct and polemic tone of the Venezuelan, accustomed to speak without filters about her experience with the tycoon and the beauty pageant industry.
The interview with Javier Ceriani: “bomb after bomb”.
In view of the commotion generated by her comments, Alicia gave an interview to Javier Ceriani to clarify her comments.
In that conversation, broadcast on television and digital platforms, she decided to go even further and recount an episode that, according to her, she experienced firsthand with Dayana Mendoza in 2016, when both coincided at Telemundo’s facilities during a special program on the situation in Venezuela and the U.S. presidential campaign.
Machado explained that at the time she had publicly expressed her support for Hillary Clinton, while, according to her version, Mendoza enthusiastically defended Donald Trump’s candidacy.
The encounter with Dayana Mendoza on Telemundo
According to the account she gave to Ceriani, Alicia approached Dayana in a hallway of the channel to greet her as a fellow Venezuelan. She assures that, instead of a cordial greeting, she received a loud complaint: Mendoza would have questioned how she dared to criticize Trump if, for her, the then candidate was almost “a messiah”. Machado maintains that this exchange took place in front of other members of the team.
The former Miss Universe insisted that when she makes such strong statements about someone, it is because she has motives and previous experiences to back her up. She also pointed out that, just as there are “urban legends” about her own life, she feels entitled to give her opinion about what is said in the media about other celebrities.
In the same interview, Machado described Mendoza as “bold” and claimed that, in the past, Trump had allegedly housed her in an apartment in New York, describing that working relationship with the tycoon in derogatory terms.
He stressed that, in his opinion, this stage would explain the subsequent turn of the former queen towards an increasingly visible religious activism; currently, the media describes her as an evangelical pastor and defender of the Christian faith.
Alicia took her comments even further by associating her criticism with a very crude view of religion and prison, and finished by pointing out that, in her opinion, Venezuela is divided even within the pageant world: she considers herself part of the “old guard” of the Miss Universe of the Venezuelan Republic, while she places other ex-queens as representatives of the Chavismo era.
These statements, openly controversial and directed at fellow women who have also worn the Venezuelan sash, add to the long history of controversies that have marked Alicia Machado’s public career and revive the debate about the boundaries between criticism, personal experience and accusations in the media space.
Here you can watch the full interview with Alicia Machado.
Find out more at ‘QueOnnda.com’.
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