Miss Universe 2023 Sheynnis Palacios on returning to Nicaragua: 'My country hasn't closed doors'
Reigning Miss Universe queen Sheynnis Palacios bared her plans to return to her homeland Nicaragua soon despite tensions from the government that barred the director of the local contest from entering the country.
Palacios is yet to be back home even though she's about to crown her Miss Universe successor during the grand coronation night on Nov. 17 (Philippine time).
She is currently residing in New York City while fulfilling her duties as the current titleholder.
The beauty queen, however, maintained that she is "not a Miss Universe who cannot go home," the New York Times reported, and that she just hasn't had the time to fly back to Nicaragua because she's been busy visiting over 30 countries since the past year.
She stressed that she, "of course," has plans to return home "to enjoy the beautiful beaches of my country, the biodiversity we have, to spend time with my people."
The issue with her return to Nicaragua started when authorities banned Karen Celebretti, the director of Miss Nicaragua, and her daughter from entering the country in November last year. The two were detained at the Augusto C. Andino International Airport and later deported to Mexico.
The government also expelled Celebretti's husband and teenage son.
It was Vice President Rosario Murillo, the wife of President Daniel Ortega, who ordered the banning.
When Palacios was crowned as Miss Universe, Murillo condemned people who are objectifying women, saying she thinks "they intend to turn a beautiful and well-deserved moment of pride and celebration into a destructive coup-mongering."
"In these hours and days of new victories, we see the gross exploitation, and the crude and evil terrorist communication, that seeks to turn a beautiful and well-deserved moment of pride and celebration into destructive coup-mongering," she said.
Some Nicaraguans criticized and held public protests against Ortega's authoritarian government. In 2019, Celebretti was briefly detained together with dozens of protesters after she demanded the release of political prisoners in Managua.
Because of this, Ortega and Murillo believed that Celebretti and her family were involved in an "anti-patriotic conspiracy" to overthrow them.
According to AP News, Palacios also came from a college that held protests against the regime in 2018, and the beauty queen "apparently participated in the marches." She also reportedly shared photos of herself at a protest on a since-deleted Facebook account. “I didn’t know whether to go, I was afraid of what might happen,” she wrote, according to the media outlet.
Palacios denied a claim by Anne Jakrajutatip, a co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization, who previously said that the beauty queen was in "indefinite exile."
"My country hasn’t closed the doors, nor have I received any documentation or information or email where they tell me I’m not welcome," said Palacios.
Palacios is a social relations graduate from the closed Jesuit Universidad Centroamericana in Managua. She made history in 2023 when she won the coveted Miss Universe title, making her the first Nicaraguan and Central American to win the title.