Nadeen Ayoub, the first-ever official Palestinian contestant in the “Miss Universe” pageant, alleged on Monday that the contest was manipulated after a rival gained what she said was an “impossible” surge in votes.
“I was leading in the voting category on the Miss Universe app for the most beautiful people and it was the only category on the application that didn’t close and they didn’t award anyone out of all of the other categories, even though the competition was over,” Ayoub said in a video reel posted to her official Instagram account on Monday.
“I was leading by far, and we only had maybe 30 minutes until the voting closes,” she said. “Within two minutes, another contestant went up over 20,000 votes, which is very impossible to do—unless there’s more than one person voting, and it’s not really realistic unless it’s done internally.”
“I just find that this is very injustice [sic],” she said. “Anyways, the voting just closed but I really had to say something. I have to stand up for myself just like I stand up for other people. As a Palestinian woman, I will stand up for what’s right,” she added.
Miss Palestine is very angry and claims that the Miss Universe title was stolen from her. She says she’s the real winner because “Palestine is the most important thing in the world right now.”
— Dr. Maalouf (@realMaalouf) November 24, 2025
You can’t make this up. Any advice for her?
pic.twitter.com/OGHTZq5h42
Ayoub, who made it into the top 30 last week, was eliminated from Miss Universe on Thursday night following the swimsuit round, in which she wore a white one-piece and white tights, the New York Post reported.
Ayoub’s inclusion in the top 30 meant she scored higher than 90 other contestants, but not high enough to make the top 12, the report added.
Miss Mexico Fátima Bosch was crowned the 74th Miss Universe at the Pak Kret, Thailand pageant following the final ceremony on Friday.
Earlier last week, the New York Post revealed that Ayoub was married to Sharif Barghouti, the son of senior Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti, and later apparently named her child after him.
Photos obtained by the New York Post showed that she made an effort to hide the fact that she had once been married to Barghouti, whose father is serving five life sentences in Israel’s Hadarim Prison for orchestrating attacks that killed five, including one foreign national, in 2001 and 2002.
Now-deleted posts on social media indicate that Ayoub wed Sharif Barghouti in 2016, and three years later gave birth to a son named Marwan, apparently in tribute to the convicted terrorist murderer.
It remained unclear whether the two are still married. A family member contacted by the New York Post on Thursday confirmed the pair had been married but declined to discuss their current marital status.
