Miss USA prepares for the international competition while her classmates CONDEMN the organization

The controversial Miss USA 2022 winner has landed in New Orleans ahead of the Miss Universe pageant as she prepares to compete for the international crown, despite her classmates condemning the organization for “exploiting” her.

R’Bonney Gabriel, 28, of Houston, has been in full competitive mode since landing in Louisiana Tuesday ahead of the January 14 Miss Universe pageant, where she is already urging her fans to “vote for her.” .

‘The time is now!’ she said in her Instagram story on Thursday. “Please vote for me in the 71st Miss Universe pageant!”

Despite the glamorous photoshoots, in which she donned a US flag and mingled with her international competitors, Gabriel ignored investigations by the domestic competition into tampering.

Miss Universe – which owns Miss USA – launched an international investigation shortly after the October 3 coronation after the Class of 2022 claimed Gabriel was the “predetermined winner” and that the competition had been rigged.

Last week, the Miss Universe Organization and law firm Holland & Knight said the contest was “unrigged” and told DailyMail.com that Gabriel would “enter the Miss Universe contest as Miss USA.”

R’Bonney Gabriel, 28, of Houston, (pictured) has been in full-fledged competitive mode since landing in Louisiana on Tuesday ahead of the January 14 Miss Universe pageant

The former Miss Texas focused on winning the international crown and ignored allegations of manipulation by the Class of 2022

The Class of 2022 released a statement on Thursday claiming the Miss Universe Organization — which owns Miss USA — “exploited women” and said they were “collateral damage… in the grand scheme of a corrupt system.”

Now, as the former Miss Texas prepares to assume a larger crown, her Class of 2022 classmates released a joint statement condemning the Miss Universe Organization’s investigation and saying it failed to properly investigate her claims of favoritism.

“It is hard to express the frustration and disrespect we, the Miss USA 2022 class, feel at the series of events before, during and after the Miss USA 2022 pageant which have provided evidence of alleged favouritism, breaches of contract and disclosed conflicts of interest within the system,” read a statement posted to the Instagram accounts of various participants.

‘MUO’s ongoing investigation of third parties [Miss Universe Organization’s] The law firm Holland & Knight concluded that there was no evidence of “manipulation” in favor of R’Bonney Gabriel. However, we were told by MUO CEO Amy Emmerich for months that the investigation was investigating “favouritism” and “conflicts of interest” (not “manipulation”) within the organization “Miss Brand” and “Miss USA.”

Contestants accused Miss USA owner Crystle Stewart of picking Gabriel for the win and said she received special treatment – like private hair and makeup teams and working with a national sponsor ahead of the competition.

“We were all used as puppets to just put this show together,” Miss Montana, Heather Lee O’Keefe, 25, of Bozeman, told DailyMail.com exclusively in an October interview. “We were just there as puppets to put on this show for them to make it seem like there was a pageant.”

Now the Class of 2022 claims they are “collateral damage” to the scandal-hit organization, which has seen plenty of bad press since Stewart took over the pageant in 2020 – including the suspension of its Miss Brand brand over the tampering allegations, DailyMail.com exclusively reveals , and her husband’s allegations of sexual misconduct from the Class of 2021.

Gabriel, who was crowned Miss USA on October 3 (pictured), has been accused by her fellow contestants of being the predetermined winner and of breaching her contract and receiving preferential treatment from pageant executives

Despite the ongoing controversy, Gabriel (pictured Thursday) has been promoting her upcoming competition on her social media, asking her fans to “vote” for her.

Gabriel has never spoken publicly about the internal investigation, but said shortly after her coronation that she “would never enter any pageant or competition that I knew I would win.”

“While we wish Gabriel the best of luck at Miss Universe, we cannot support an organization that claims to be built on integrity, honesty, transparency and the empowerment of women when all it has done is shove scandals under the rug sweeping and silencing the very women they claim to be empowered and behaving so unprofessionally.

“We believe that Gabriel – like all of us – is collateral damage in a corrupt system’s grand scheme to exploit women at our expense.”

DailyMail.com has reached out to Miss Universe for comment.

The Class of 2022 now calls for future participants to be “received with fairness and respect in pursuing their dreams and being treated like the bright young women they are”.

“We will continue to fight for transparency in this system for the women who come after us,” the statement concluded.

The beauty queens recently took to social media to condemn the December 27 meeting with Miss Universe President Paula Shugart, during which they were muted and not allowed to ask questions.

At the meeting they were told the competition was not rigged and the questions they had asked before the meeting were not answered. In addition, the meeting with Emmerich was supposed to take place, but she was “nowhere to be found”.

Participants publicly stated that they did not believe they would receive a “copy of.” [Holland & Knight’s] Findings” and “still waiting” for it.

Miss USA owner Crystle Stewart (pictured in 2015) has been accused of picking Gabriel as the winner. Her Miss Brand brand has also been suspended over the allegation, which DailyMail.com exclusively revealed in October

Despite the ongoing drama surrounding Gabriel’s coronation, the Miss Universe hopeful has never commented publicly on the investigation or its preliminary findings.

Shortly after her win, Gabriel told E! News’ The Rundown that she ‘would never enter a pageant or contest that I knew I would win’.

“I have a lot of integrity,” she told journalist Erin Lim.

On the day of the meeting, December 27, her Instagram — unlike her peers — was devoid of public comment.

Instead, she posted a glamorous photo of herself in a white dress and wrote, “Never let anyone change the way you feel about yourself.”

The fashion designer is instead focusing on her upcoming competition, showing off the many glamorous outfits she’s worn as she prepares for next week’s big show.