Miss Colombia breaks her silence after being wrongly named the winner

‘After the storm comes the calm,’ wrote the 21-year-old beauty queen on her Instagram account. ‘I want to thank each and everyone of you who have sent messages of support and strength.

‘Every one of you has become an incredible human being in my book and I am the most fortunate and thankful for having the support not only from one country but from the whole entire world. Your destiny is written for you. And my destiny was this.

‘I was able to bring happiness to my country after becoming Miss Universe for only a couple of minutes,’ she stated, adding that Colombia has now become the topic of conversation all over the world.

Gutierrez was proclaimed Miss Universe in Las Vegas during Sunday’s live broadcast of the pageant, only to be stripped of her crown just a couple of minutes later after ceremony host Steve Harvey admitted that he read the wrong name off his cue card, and that the real winner was Miss Philippines Pia Wurtzbach, with Gutierrez being the first runner-up.

‘It is my mistake,’ he said after holding up the card for the camera. ‘Still, it's a great night. Please don't hold it against the ladies. We feel very badly, but it's still a great night.’

Harvey later tweeted an apology to the women and viewers. ‘I feel terrible,’ he wrote. The Miss Universe organization also issued an apology.

And despite the flub, the pageant has said that Harvey is welcome back to host next year at the pageant in Belize.

On her part, Wurtzbach, who appeared confused and bewildered upon learning she was the winner, was quoted as saying of Gutierrez: 'I did not take the crown from her.'

In her Instagram message, which was accompanied by a photo from the pageant showing Gutierrez making a heart sign with her hands, the striking Colombian model and TV host graciously congratulated the Philippines on the victory. 

‘The happiness that you must be feeling must be incredible,’ she wrote. ‘Life continues and in the future we will find out why things happen the way they happen.’

In the wake of the embarrassing incident, the hashtag 'Respect the Crown' was Colombia's top trending topic on Twitter, and even the country's president weighed in.

'They put the crown on her head,' President Juan Manuel Santos said Monday. 'The photos are there to prove it. To me, as a Colombian, she is still Miss Universe.'

People Magazine reported that Gutierrez traveled to Miami on Tuesday to unwind from the pageant debacle and spend the holidays with her family.

(dailymail.co.uk)