Did Rachel Gupta step down or was the title withdrawn? In video, Jalandhar beauty exposes dark side of Miss Grand International

Rachel Gupta from Jalandhar, Punjab, made history by winning the Miss Grand International 2024 title.

The beauty pageant, which started in 2013, was held in Thailand this year with participation from 70 countries. The 20-year-old brought pride to India by winning the crown.

Also read: Punjab's Rachel Gupta steps down as Miss Grand International, cites toxic environment, mistreatment

However, less than a year into her reign, Rachel announced through a social media post that she is relinquishing the crown.

Following her public resignation, the Miss Grand International Organisation released an official statement claiming that Rachel’s title had been terminated.

No details were provided to address concerns Rachel raised in her video.

Rachel Gupta, in a 56-minute tell-all video, turned emotional as she recounted "what I've been going through for the last seven months." “A lot of you knew something wasn’t right. You could sense. I read all the comments. I know a lot of you could tell my reign wasn't going very, very well. There were issues with the organisation on their end,” Rachel said.

“I just want to be completely transparent for all of you,” she added. “You supported me so much and you deserve to know the truth.”

Rachel she was giving a tell-all so girls aspiring to be like her would "understand what they're signing up for."

"These have been the worst few months of my life. I have been at rock bottom," she said, adding the last time she was truly happy was when she won back in November 2024. Since then, it's been going downhill.”

“It's taken a lot of courage to give up the crown that I worked so hard for and also to talk about it so openly.”

Rachel said she has put so much effort and hard work into her dream of winning the Miss Grand International crown. But “all I've gotten in return is constant harassment, mental torture, mistreatment, and it's on a systemic level. I don't think they can ever change this.”

Rachel alleged that countries paid for votes “in the form of donations.”

“When I found out, we couldn't afford to pay for the votes,” she said. “It was so, so difficult to compete in terms of votes.”

Rachel said she did not pay for the votes because she did not have the funds, and she did not blame the countries who did, because “everybody wants to win.” According to Rachel, the only reason she won is because of public support.

She said, "it is impossible to work with the Miss Grand International organisation". "They only care about money. That is their only thing,” she said.

Rachel said she has been in Thailand for many months but the organisation has not provided her with basic amenities. “You think, after winning, you'd think oh my god, it's a dream come true, the organisation is going to take care of me, but that's not true,” she said.

She said how, immediately after winning, she was moved into a hotel room so small her suitcases could not open properly.

She was then moved to a "dilapidated house" an hour-and-a-half away from the city, where the organisation's office is located.

She was not provided a car, neither was she provided a mobile phone, and there were no pots and pans in the house for her to cook food. She would order food from delivery services but they'd arrive two hours late, and sometimes, her order would be canceled because the house was so faraway.

She said requested for even just fruits, but “they couldn’t even do that.” “I requested multiple times, please can we make sure there's food? It's their responsibility. I'm there with them, with that organisation. They should at least make sure that they're giving their queen food to eat.”

She also requested gym access but the organisation did not arrange this for her, and said she had to beg for a yoga mat.

“At the same time, they were hounding me, constantly just talking about my weight and my body all the time,” she said. “I remember one time, they sent their representative to me and he comes up to me starts pinching me in different places. 'Oh you need to lose weight here, you need to lose weight here.'”

Crying, Rachel said, “What am I supposed to say to that? It's so embarrassing and makes you feel so small and so bad. I understand, obviously I have to stay fit and stay in shape for the job but it's so difficult when you don't have access to anything and you're just locked in a house all day long. What are you supposed to do?”

According to Rachel, there would be days when nobody would message her, there were hardly any events, and she was stuck in the house.

“People are asking me, ‘why aren't you posting Rachel? Why are there no updates from you? And I would just say I'm really bad at it. But the truth is, what should I post? What should I post? Sitting here in the house, there's nobody to take pictures of me, I'm sitting here, depressed, nothing to do,” she said.

She also said that during red carpet events, she had to pretend everything is okay and that she is friends with organisation representatives.

“The truth is, frankly, they don't know whether I'm alive or dead until we meet at the red carpet and smile for the cameras together. That's all they care about, getting that picture. It's such a false narrative.”

“I was working so much and there was so much toxicity and negativity in the organisation. Everyday, I would get more disillusioned. It would get harder and harder for me," she said.

In the video, Rachel spoke about financial constraints following her Miss Grand International win. She admitted that it was only after she won that she saw the financial arrangements in the contract.

According to Rachel, she'd be paid a monthly stipend, with the the prize money coming after her reign. But "I was paid my monthly stipend for the first month, just for the month of November. And they didn't pay me at all after that," she said.

Rachel said that it was her parents who helped her with her financial needs.

They had just given her dollars, when Rachel had a work trip at a province in Thailand. She left her money in her suitcase at home, and when she returned, not only did she she find her things disheveled, she was also missing a thousand dollars from her possession. She said she hardly travelled because she had no money.  The only country she travelled was Czech Republic. Also, that they did not provide me the opportunity for me to travel, she alleged.

She messaged a representative from the organisation and after following up, they simply told her "we can't prove that you have the money so there's nothing we can do."

"I spoke with Teresa [Chaivisut] about it and the moment I bring it up with her, she starts attacking me and blaming me for it."

"I understand it was my fault i didn't lock my suitcase but I never imagined something like this could happen on company property," she said. "I'm not a contestant anymore. I'm their queen. It's their job to take care of me and make sure I'm safe and my things are safe. But she fully blamed me."

Clearly distressed about the business model of the organisation, Rachel also spoke about doing TikTok Lives to sell products and said she felt "guilty for misleading the fans."

"It baffles me. You have women, me as a speaker who wants to talk issues, who wants to create change in the world who has so many ideas not just business but philanthropic work and you want her to sell chili paste and chili sauce and random things on TikTok? Seriously," she asked.

According to the Indian beauty queen, she wanted to raise awareness about social issues. "The only reason I'm doing this is to use my voice in a way that matters, not selling on TikTok but actually working with charities. They used this 'stop the war and violence' thing, but it's all fake. It's all a facade. Where is the stop the war and violence. Where is the advocacy work for that?"

She said, "I've heard Nawat say 'it's useless, that people don't care about it. It's not entertaining. It doesn't make money so we're not going to do it.'"

"I'm sorry but it's not all about entertainment. Being a queen, that's not what pageantry is about. You know, it's about being a global public figure who uses her voice for good, you know, not these cheap entertainment tactics.” Rachel said.

She recounted how they were called into the office to sign their contracts and was immediately made to feel "lucky to be chosen by us."

"I don't know if I can explain that situation properly, but when they gave the contract, it was like a gun to the head, okay? It was their pen, their paper, their office, their contract, their rules. And we were expected to just sit down, shut up, and sign it," Rachel said. She tried to negotiate or at least have her lawyer look at it, but "Teresa said no. 'If you don't want to sign it, don't sign it. You can leave.'"

"There's no negotiating this. You just sign it. They want the girls to feel lucky to be chosen. Just sign it," Rachel recalled.

According to the Indian beauty queen, the MGI organisation threatened to dethroned her as early as two months into her reign.

"They used that thing of dethronement, of taking the crown away as blackmail, to manipulate me for everything. You can't bring up a single issue with them because they will just say, we'll take your crown away," Rachel said.

She called Nawat and Teresa, “cold-hearted businesspeople" who "just want to extract your use, make money off of you. That is it, that’s all they care about. And all they care about is how they look.”

"They do not care about what you speak, what you think. They only care about is what you look like," she added.

Rachel ended her video with a strong statement: “If you're thinking of supporting this pageant, or if you're a girl who's thinking of, God forbid, of competing in this pageant, please go into way completely aware of all of these things that even if you win, you'll be completely on your own and you're not going to get any love or special treatment or safety or support from this organisation."

“The organisation, Miss Grand International Organisation, does not care about you. It does not care about its queens. All it wants is to use its queens until the queens are not useful. And I could not be a part of this more, which is why I chose to give up my title and to resign,” Rachel said.

For the future, Rachel says she will continue to believe in herself and is thankful for the public’s support, love, and trust. She is also thankful for all the relationships she made.

“I want you to know that this decision to give the crown back, it did not come from a place of pain. It came from a place of strength,” she said.

“I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything, I feel like I gained everything. I feel free for the first time in months. I feel free and I feel like I can breathe. I’ve just been drowning for so long and I feel like I’ve come up for air. And I have my life back and I’m so grateful for that,” Rachel said.