Steve Harvey's major mistake in announcing the wrong winner during the 2015 Miss Universe Pageant hasn't kept the television personality from reprising his role as host for the competition in the years since. However, this year's iteration of the competition turned into a bout of deja vu when a mix-up made Harvey appear as if he identified the wrong winner of the National Costume category for the 2019 Miss Universe pageant.
It was as an image of Miss Philippines Gazini Ganados came on the screen, that Harvey read off on the teleprompter that she was the winner of the National Costume category from earlier in the week. However, standing next to Harvey was Miss Malaysia Shweta Sekhon.
"This is it right here, I thought I had on something fly," he quipped.
Sekhon would soon take the microphone from Harvey and attempt to correct him. "It's not Philippines," she said. "It's Malaysia."
"Let me explain something to you. I just read that in the teleprompter," he comically flipped. "Y'all got to quit doing this to me. I can read. Now, they are trying to fix it now. See? This is what they did to me back in 2015 – played me short like that. This is Malaysia."
Turns out he was never in the wrong, according to insiders, per Deadline.
"Miss Universe Philippines Gazini Ganados is the winner of the Miss Universe 2019 National Costume contest. As part of the broadcast, we also featured Miss Universe Malaysia Shweta Sekhon’s national costume,” the insider revealed. “Miss Sekhon wasn’t aware we’d be announcing Philippines first, so she jumped the gun when Mr. Harvey started with that news. Mr. Harvey made a joke of it, but no mistakes regarding the national costume winner were made by him, the prompter or production.”
The remainder of the broadcast, however, went off with a hitch as South Africa's Zozibini Tunzi was ultimately crowned Miss Universe 2019. See the crowning moment (pun delightfully intended) below.