Twenty-Five Years Since the Miss Lanzarote Scandal: A Reflection on Pop Culture and Social Change

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Misses, Scandals, and Pop Culture: Lanzarote 25 Years Ago

In the year when Helen Lindes embraced the Miss Universe crown, a revolution erupted on the island: the Misses rebellion, which extended beyond the archipelago. This event recently marked its 25th anniversary, and artist Cristóbal Tabares, artistic director Pedro Ayose, and writer Mare Cabrera revisited it on 12th August at El Almacén, delivering a humorous talk that turned into a spectacle.

The controversy ignited in 2000, but had been brewing for several years prior. “Nuria Esther de León Martín, representative of Joyería Mapy, claimed the title of Miss Lanzarote,” local press reported in August 1997. Among the contestants that year was Helen Lindes, who had to settle for third place as Second Lady. “When I entered in 1997, we all knew the representative from Joyería Mapy would win, as they had won for three consecutive years,” Lindes remarked later, having already achieved success beyond the island.

Cristóbal Tabares, Mare Cabrera, and Pedro Ayose took us on a journey back to 2000, highlighting the infamous Miss Lanzarote scandal alongside a social and cultural portrait of the era

It was precisely the year when Spain’s representative won Miss Spain and placed as the second finalist in Miss Universe, mere tenths behind the winner, that the Miss Lanzarote contestants declared enough was enough. “The contestants alleged that the competition had been rigged beforehand” and “¡¡¡Scandal at Miss Lanzarote 2000!!!” were among the headlines following the raucous scene during the final gala. As in previous editions, a familiar name surfaced: the jewellery brand sponsoring the winner.

The atmosphere was already charged due to the results of the preliminary gala and the suspicion that such an outcome could occur, and upon confirmation, cries and weeping broke out from both contestants and the audience. “We had to leave escorted by the police,” confessed the well-known host Jorge Javier Vázquez, who participated as a judge that year.

A Journey Through Time

Under the title “Misses, Counterculture and Popular Art,” the show devised by Cristóbal Tabares, Mare Cabrera, and Pedro Ayose reflects on that incident to “offer an anthropological, aesthetic, and critical interpretation of the rich and iconic cultural imagery surrounding insular beauty contests.” Additionally, it provides a 25-year retrospective, portraying the political, social, and cultural context of that era.

In Lanzarote, the year 2000 began with Tele 5 broadcasting the New Year’s bells from the square in Haría. Despite predictions, there was neither an apocalypse nor technological chaos. The following day, on 2nd January 2000, the mother of then King Juan Carlos, María de las Mercedes de Borbón y Orleans, passed away in Lanzarote while spending Christmas at La Mareta with the entire royal family.

A quarter of a century since the beauty contest that shook the San Ginés festivities and turned the island upside down, transcending the borders of the Canaries

At that time, Letizia Ortiz was still a journalist at Televisión Española and not the Queen of Spain, while Pedro Almodóvar had yet to win an Oscar. He achieved this for the first time in 2000 with the film “All About My Mother,” famously introduced by Penélope Cruz’s shout of “¡Pedrooo!” He is currently shooting his second film on the island this summer.

On television, an unprecedented phenomenon emerged: Big Brother. It was also the era of “Marcianadas” (Martian Chronicles), “Tamarismo”, and the “No cambié” (I Didn’t Change), which have resurfaced with a series and a Netflix documentary, recalling that dark period in television history.

However, as was remembered during the conversation, many of those shows did not reach all Lanzarote’s villages in 2000, as some could only tune in to channels 1 and 2 from Televisión Española. “Either a Venezuelan telenovela or the cycling tour of Spain. You decide what you want to fall asleep to,” they joked.

For the youth, the series of reference was “Al salir de clase” (After Class), while magazines featuring fold-out posters of popular artists remained strong. The most listened-to song was “Sobreviviré” by Mónica Naranjo, with Alejandro Sanz and Ricky Martin (who had not yet come out) reigning in popularity.

Through humour and irony, Cristóbal Tabares and Pedro Ayose also tackled the social transformation experienced through this topic, reminiscing about what it meant to be homosexual in the early 2000s. “You had to be content with being like Boris Izaguirre, a flamboyant figure out of the closet on television.”

In literary terms, they recalled that the best-selling book was “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” with its “Voldemort has returned!” and that self-help books were beginning to gain traction. This context marked society a quarter of a century ago when beauty contests stirred passion on the island and could become a matter of public concern.

The Rebellion

Thus, the controversy erupted in Lanzarote when the winner’s name was announced in 2000. “There are 23 girls eagerly aspiring to the Miss Lanzarote title. We’ve wasted our time rehearsing; why bother if the game was rigged from the start?” expressed Kataiza Moreno, voicing the outrage of her fellow contestants.

They claimed that the jewellery brand sponsoring the winning contestants contributed 400,000 pesetas for the organisation of the contest, while other brands offered between 100,000 and 150,000, thereby “pre-determining the winner.” They also demanded that the council remove contest director Tony Orosa and artistic director Willie Díaz from the event, reproaching Díaz for intervening as both the gala’s head and a designer representing some of the contestants.

“The public was very angry, and rightly so—they knew there was foul play involved,” declared Jorge Javier Vázquez, a judge on the controversial contest

The following year, the Miss Spain organisation intervened, disassociating the Miss Lanzarote contest from the San Ginés festivities while echoes of the controversy lingered on. However, it was in 2002, via a report by El Mundo Televisión aired on Antena 3, that the scandal reached national prominence. The report focused on beauty contests, triggered by the rigging of the Miss Alicante title, but also touched upon what happened on the island.

“I was on holiday in Lanzarote and participated for the sake of commitment, as I didn’t enjoy these events. On a Friday, the Miss Elegance title was awarded, and I could already see strange movements within the jury led by a gentleman from Las Palmas who was defending the indefensible,” Jorge Javier Vázquez stated at the time. For him, “it was glaringly evident that something was amiss” and that “there were far more beautiful girls who should have won the title. The public was understandably furious; they knew there was manipulation involved.”

“Misses, Counterculture and Popular Art” provided a musical backdrop to those statements, featuring “three hits” composed for the occasion, accompanied by music videos produced by Gonzalo Gómez. They did not stray from the statements made at the time. “We don’t have that much imagination,” they confessed. The first song, “Enteradas”, was dedicated to contestant Kataiza; the second to Jorge Javier Vázquez; and the third to Willie Díaz.

The lyrics of the latter, set to a salsa rhythm and echoing Díaz’s statements, declared: “I have nothing to say regarding the accusations made by Jorge Javier Vázquez; I was merely the artistic director of the 2000 gala. If you have concerns about anything, call Sonsoles Artigas or Isabel Printz, who were on the jury, and ask them. What I have said about this matter, I have already addressed. I believe the media should focus on immigration, employment, AIDS, and leave the frivolities aside.”

Glitter and Scorn

While Cristóbal Tabares, Mare Cabrera, and Pedro Ayose directed their questions to the audience, the referred individual, Willie Díaz, was absent from the room. Nor were any of the contestants present to express themselves. Only those who knew them, those who lived through that period, or those wishing to take a 25-year journey to remember what happened in 2000 attended.

The glitter trail led them to other beauty contests and eras. Since 1929, when the first Miss Spain contest, then called “Señorita de España,” was held, the winner faced fierce criticism from a fellow contestant. Allegations swirling included two jury members being Valencian like herself, accusations of raising her skirt to her knees—“when she was completely against the morality promised by the judges”—and even claims of having three-coloured hair, a gold tooth, and being “burdened with a bad back.”

This was the other face of beauty contests, far removed from glamour. It only served to enhance their popularity amidst mockery and scorn. “We empathise very little with 18-year-old girls asked how they would resolve their country’s guerrilla warfare. If they could answer that, they wouldn’t be there; they would be at the UN,” proposed Cristóbal Tabares, maintaining his irony.

“We empathise very little with 18-year-old girls when asked how they would resolve their country’s conflicts. If they could, they wouldn’t be there; they’d be at the UN”

He actually launched this phrase after pretending to read passages from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, discussing a woman’s battle against the conventions of her time; only to reveal they were, in fact, real answers given by contestants during the Miss Spain contest in 1993: “I’m still young and don’t believe it’s the right time for me to become a mother. I need to stabilise my life and focus on my studies”; “When I wake up in the morning, I think of nothing. I simply think about being happy”; “I would do anything to maintain my beauty, but I don’t know to what extent. I don’t want to make sacrifices just to look beautiful”; “It sounds cliché, but if I had power, I would remedy hunger. I don’t know, the misery I see out there fills me with so much sorrow.”

Thus, they concluded this journey through “a night of fix and tiaras,” a “revolution of satin dresses, lacquer, and stolen dreams,” wrapping it up with humour, thanking “the Committee of Festivities, Joyerías Mapy, and of course San Ginés, the silent witness to all these festive absurdities.”

The San Ginés Festivities and the Decline of Miss Lanzarote

Following the controversy surrounding the 2000 Miss Lanzarote contest, the Miss Spain organisation decided to intervene, changing the organisers, venue, and date the following year, while dissociating the gala from the San Ginés celebrations. The first step involved appointing a Miss Spain delegate in Lanzarote, Norma Lindes, Helen’s mother. “The true protagonists will be the candidates and not the scandals,” she announced at that time.

The aim was to transform the contest into an event with its own autonomy and stricter rules to prevent favoritism. Among other things, all designs would come from a single author and would be assigned by lottery. The intention was to hold it annually in a municipality of the island, coinciding with the Los Dolores festivities, although these plans were never realised.

The original venue was to be the square in Yaiza, but at the last moment, they had to relocate the gala to a hotel in Costa Teguise. Rumours suggested that the mayor of Arrecife, María Isabel Déniz, had spoken to her counterpart in Yaiza, José Francisco Reyes, to prevent the contest from taking place in her municipality. Arrecife subsequently confronted Miss Spain when the contest was withdrawn, announcing legal actions and organising a parallel gala that year in San Ginés under the similar name of “Miss Isla de Lanzarote.”

Just a year later, in 2002, Arrecife regained the contest and included it back in the San Ginés festivities. Although the former director Tony Orosa was no longer at the helm, Willie Díaz continued until 2007. That year, the new councillor for Festivals, Miguel Ángel Ferrer, announced that they would organise the contest with the official Miss Spain organisation, without Willie Díaz.

In subsequent years, the beauty contest continued under various names as part of the capital’s festivities until another socialist councillor, Nova Kirkpatrick, decided to put an end to it in 2019. “I will not support beauty contests during San Ginés, as I will not allow one girl to hold more value than another simply for having a better figure. I believe we should not reward something that is no merit, such as physical attributes, which everyone is born with,” stated the councillor, igniting a controversy that has since faded, and with the contest never reinstated, which had been financed with public money and led to an abundance of writing on the subject.

Monthly Leisure and Culture Magazine of Lanzarote – September 2025