Beautiful island, beautiful lady
Miss Puerto Rico, Denise Quinones, won the Miss Universe crown before an ecstatic crowd in Puerto Rico on May 11, 2001. A few minutes earlier, she had won the Clairol Herbal Essence Style Award, and earlier in the week, she had been chosen Miss Photogenic.
She is the fourth Puerto Rican to become Miss Universe.
The first runner-up was Miss Greece, Evelina Papantoniou, and the second runner-up was Kandace Krueger, Miss USA. The third runner-up was Eva Ekvall, Miss Venezuela, and the fourth runner-up was Celina Jaitley, Miss India.
Other semifinalists were Eva Siso Casals of Spain, Agbani Darego of Nigeria, Ilanit Levi of Israel, Oxana Kalandyrets of Russia and Elodie Gossuin of France.
Nakera Simms of the Bahamas was chosen Miss Congeniality.
With televised pageants considered to be in a ratings slump, this one was preceded by some rather unconventional hype. Television advertising on CBS promised "super-scandals." An absurd rumor was floated, with the obvious acquiescence of the pageant's owners, that Miss France had once been a man. Then the rumor was kept alive by repeated denials. When even the most tenaciously gullible began to tire of the "gender issue," the supposed record of Miss Brazil's plastic surgery was leaked to the media. This time, there were no denials.
