On September 18, Miss Universe published two statements that cannot both be true.

The first, posted in the name of JKN Universe LLC, the company that does business as the Miss Universe Organization, said delegates from Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, and Singapore would not be eligible for the 75th Miss Universe pageant in Puerto Rico. Their national franchise agreements, it said, were void ab initio, a legal term meaning invalid from the moment they were signed.

The second came from Miss Universe Eastern, or MU East, a division of the same organization, and it appeared on the official Miss Universe website the same day. MU East said it had not reviewed or approved the exclusion, and that valid contracts could not be cancelled through “a one-sided public statement.”

Two months before the pageant’s 75th edition, six national delegates are waiting to find out which half of a divided company gets the final word.

A Crown Owned in Halves

The split starts with ownership. Thailand’s JKN Global Group bought the Miss Universe brand in 2022. Around January 2024, Mexican businessman Raúl Rocha Cantú’s Legacy Holding Group paid roughly $16 million for half of the parent company, leaving it owned 50:50.

MU East now describes the organization as an equal partnership between itself and “MU West,” governed by what it calls a Hemisphere Agreement. According to MU East, that agreement gives it exclusive rights to run the brand in 95 eastern territories, including the right to appoint national franchise holders there.

MU East’s chief executive is Nawat Itsaragrisil, the Thai media executive who founded the rival Miss Grand International pageant in 2013. He was named to the post on July 31, 2026. By then he had already been collecting Southeast Asian franchises. In May, his Miss Grand business announced it had secured the Miss Universe licenses for Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Thailand’s franchise was already under his management.

Those are the six countries now in dispute.

Three Weeks of Statements

The public fight escalated quickly through September.

• September 2: Nawat and members of his team were reportedly not allowed to take part in a Miss Universe National Directors’ Town Hall.
• September 4: a statement from the MU West side said Thailand’s participation in the 75th edition was being evaluated.
• September 8: a statement in the organization’s name said Nawat held no employment, corporate, executive, operational, or legal position within the Miss Universe Organization.
• September 9: MU East replied that Nawat was its duly appointed CEO and a recognized franchise holder, and that neither side should present its own views as the position of the whole company.
• September 18: the exclusion notice was published, and MU East rejected it the same day.

Nawat answered at a press conference. He said the notice had no legal effect because a decision that large would need approval through the company’s governance structure, and he said all six delegates would travel to San Juan. He won’t be joining them. “I am not going, but the contestants are definitely going,” he told reporters.

He has also warned that if Puerto Rico cannot guarantee the six countries a place on stage, he could tell roughly five dozen other nations under his authority to skip this year’s edition.

The Money Question

A separate argument over money is running alongside the franchise fight. Puerto Rico agreed to pay $8.7 million to host the pageant, a figure the territory’s tourism agency has confirmed. Nawat’s camp has publicly questioned where some of that money went, alleging that part of it ended up in accounts unconnected to Miss Universe. The claim reached the Puerto Rico Senate’s Tourism Committee, which has asked for banking records and invoices.

Puerto Rico’s Compañía de Turismo, the government tourism company behind the hosting deal, says the payments were tied to verified contractual milestones. JKN Universe LLC has called Nawat’s financial claims unverified and unsupported, and says it may take legal action over what it considers false statements. None of the allegations has been independently established.

Both Owners Face Legal Cases at Home

The two sides of the ownership are also dealing with criminal cases in their own countries.

Rocha, who is also president of JKN Universe LLC, faces an arrest warrant in Mexico. Federal prosecutors have linked him to an alleged network that moved fuel, weapons, and drugs from Guatemala into Mexico. A warrant was first issued in November 2025. Prosecutors briefly granted him cooperating-witness status, then reversed it, and a federal judge ordered his arrest again that December. Mexico’s financial intelligence unit froze his bank accounts in February 2026, and prosecutors requested a separate money-laundering warrant in August. He has not been convicted in any of these cases.

Anne Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip, the Thai businesswoman who led JKN’s purchase of the brand, was convicted in absentia by a Bangkok court on December 26, 2025, for defrauding an investor, and sentenced to two years in prison. She had already stepped down from JKN Global Group and from her Miss Universe role after a Thai securities-fraud complaint, and JKN was later delisted from the Thai stock exchange.

The cases don’t settle who has the authority to grant franchises. They do make it harder for either side to speak convincingly for the whole organization.

The Delegates Waiting on an Answer

Thailand has already chosen its representative. Tharina Botes, a pageant veteran, won Miss Universe Thailand in August and is now preparing for a competition that one of its owners says she cannot enter. Malaysia and Vietnam were due to pick their delegates next month.

This is the second Miss Universe cycle in a row shaped by Nawat’s clashes with the organization. During last year’s pageant in Thailand, he publicly reprimanded then-Miss Mexico Fátima Bosch over promotional duties. Bosch walked out, several contestants followed her, and Rocha publicly condemned Nawat’s behavior. Nawat later apologized, and Bosch went on to win the crown. The mistrust from that edition has since turned into a fight over the company itself.

Why It Matters in the Philippines

The Philippines is not among the six countries named. Nawat’s influence on Philippine pageantry is still larger than many fans may realize. He is the executive partner of Reina Filipinas, the new national pageant led by shoe designer Jojo Bragais, which sent Angelica Lopez to Miss Grand International in Thailand this season. She is competing in Nawat’s own pageant while he fights the Miss Universe case.

His warning about roughly five dozen other nations also raises a question for Filipino fans. The public statements so far don’t make clear which countries he means, or whether the Philippines is one of them. That could matter to Bea Millan-Windorski, who goes to San Juan as the Philippines’ bid for a fifth Miss Universe crown. For now, both factions say the 75th edition will go ahead as planned.

The pageant has already lost one major franchise since last year. Miss France withdrew from the Miss Universe Organization in May, citing the controversies around the 2025 edition. If the franchise dispute isn’t resolved by November, the 75th Miss Universe may be remembered as much for who was allowed to compete as for who won.

Key dates:

• 75th Miss Universe: November 24, 2026, José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum, San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Reigning titleholder: Fátima Bosch, Mexico
• Countries in dispute: Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore
• Philippine delegate: Bea Millan-Windorski