Miss NZ 2024 finalists with winner Samantha Poole in the middle.
Several young women are accusing the Miss New Zealand beauty pageant of racism and fattism. But the franchise holder rejects this, and says it’s about survival of the fittest and you have to have guts or you’ll be pushed into the corner. Carolyne Meng-Yee reports.
Three former beauty queens from the Miss New Zealand pageant have lashed out at organisers, claiming they’ve been subject to fat-shaming, racism and competition-rigging.
Moya van Kooten, 23, a finalist in Miss New Zealand 2024, said she entered the pageant for growth and networking opportunities but received “six months of hell”.
“I felt pressured to swim in freezing water and bungee jump off the Harbour Bridge. I was severely underweight, developed hypothermia, and nearly fainted” van Kooten claimed.
“I was a size 4 and told that was perfect. There was constant pressure to make money and stay thin.
“I’m white, but I had brown curly hair. The moment I met the organisers I knew I wasn’t their type. I even considered dyeing my hair blonde just to have a chance.
“I couldn’t imagine how it felt for the girls who are Māori, Indian, or Chinese,” van Kooten said.
Rose Foulger, 80, the Miss New Zealand franchise owner, rejects allegations of racism and body-shaming.
Some girls look white but they are a mixed race so you can’t tell
She said the pageant celebrates diversity and women from many nationalities have won the title of Miss New Zealand over the years.
“We have had Chinese, Maori and Filipino winners- we believe in diversity. Some girls look white but they are a mixed race so you can’t tell,” Foulger said.
She said the industry is about “survival of the fittest.”
“It’s not just tested on your beauty but your mental strength and social skills. How can you be Miss New Zealand if you lack those skills? You have to have guts otherwise you will be pushed into the corner.”
Foulger told the Herald she has no say in who is chosen from New Zealand competitions to compete internationally.
She provides photos of Miss New Zealand finalists and winners to the directors of international pageants, and they have the right to choose the competitors they want.
Foulger said Asian countries tend to favour blonde contestants.
“If you compete in Asia they ask for European Kiwis, not thinking New Zealand is a Māori country. It’s not an issue, it’s very common ... They have the right to choose who they want, I have no say.
“We send them the photos, they get to pick. It’s not our call. If you own a business, you choose the people you want to work with - this is no different.”
Another 2024 finalist, a lawyer who asked to remain anonymous, told the Herald she too believes the pageant is racist, and a “charity scam.”
“The more money we raised, the more points we received on our score sheets” she claimed.
“I experienced racism and bullying. I was made to feel ugly because I wasn’t white and told to eat one miso soup a day because being a size 10 was considered too fat,” the finalist claimed.
The lawyer, 27, told The Herald she entered the competition to boost her profile, gain confidence, and promote mental health awareness.
“The contest was marketed as a self-development course, but it’s not. I’m a feminist at heart, and found it outdated and misogynistic,” she said.
Despite raising $10,000 and making public appearances at schools and community events—and consistently scoring well—the lawyer claimed she was told she was too brown to represent New Zealand in Japan, and that she’d be more suited to competing in Egypt.
Meghan Kenney, a former beauty queen and the National Director of Miss New Zealand 2024 said she was floored by the baseless accusations.
Kenney told the Herald she is strongly opposed to contestants being judged on their appearances or body shapes.
“The miso soup allegation was crazy — it made me sound like a dictator running a concentration camp,” Kenney said.
“She was a bigger girl and wanted to lose weight. I told her, ‘People can be cruel — you have to be prepared.’ I advised her to speak with a nutritionist and not to starve herself,“ Kenney said.
Kenney’s role as National Director was to mentor and offer pastoral care to contestants from rehearsals, workshops and boot camps through to the final night and pageant.
Kenney told the Herald she had been trying to warn the lawyer, a close friend at the time, that if she wanted to compete internationally, she would need to develop a thick skin to cope with online trolling.
I want want every girl to walk away feeling like a queen
van Kooten, who is studying psychology, claims that when she confided personal details in Kenney about leaving a violent relationship, the conversation backfired.
“I regret telling her [because] she used it to test my mental health, it felt manipulative” van Kooten claimed.
“This hurt the most,” Kenney, 30, told the Herald.
“I put so much of myself into these pageants. The girls called me Mama Meg. I was their therapist and friend and mentored them. My partner would get upset because I took on so much.”
Miss New Zealand is the country’s longest-running national beauty contest - first run in 1926.
The competition peaked in 1983 when Miss New Zealand Lorraine Downes was crowned Miss Universe in St Louis, Missouri, watched by 600 million TV viewers globally.
The Herald has obtained a handbook from Miss NZ 2024 written by Kenney. She wrote, “I want want every girl to walk away feeling like a queen in their own right. You will win friends for life and grow into a stronger and more empowered, confident version of yourself. This will be a safe place for you and I will always be on your team.”
To qualify for the pageant, contestants need to be New Zealand citizens, aged between 18 and 28, never married, without children, and natural-born female.
Contestants must pay a $1,400 entry fee, which covers fitness and nutrition workshops, public speaking and presenting, catwalk and modelling coaching, and an overnight stay at a marae.
They also have to find sponsors to assist with makeup, hair and gowns.
Contestants are judged on intelligence, personality, emotional control, stage presence, outfit, swimwear modelling and their understanding of te reo Māori.
There is a panel of four judges, which must include the previous winner, and a Māori judge.
van Kooten has also accused the organisers of rigging the contest.
“In 2023 Britney Pringle won Miss Auckland. Last year she judged Miss New Zealand, and then she won it this year. In my opinion, that’s rigged” van Kooten told the Herald.
Pringle confirmed she was a Miss New Zealand judge in 2024 and won the competition in 2025, but rejected all allegations of rigging, racism and bullying.
Foulger told the Herald beauty pageants are full of rumour and innuendo from contestants who don’t win titles.
The lawyer who was crowned Charity Queen in 2024 claims Miss New Zealand never gave her a receipt for the $10,000 she had raised for her chosen charity, I Am Hope.
Charity Queen is an additional title contestants compete for by fundraising.
The Herald contacted I Am Hope to ask if it had received the donation from Miss New Zealand - either under the name of Rose Foulger, or the lawyer’s name.
A spokesperson said “No donations have been received under those names by the charity.”
Two months after the pageant, Foulger sent the lawyer $10,000 after her father intervened.
The Herald has obtained 2024 correspondence between a recent Miss New Zealand finalist, and pageant co-owner Desmond Foulger, in which she complained of bullying in the competition.
In an email, Foulger wrote: “Unfortunately this happens on a regular basis each year because of jealousy, which seems to have been invented for women to wield as a weapon.”
“A lawyer can become a flight attendant, but a flight attendant can’t be lawyer. If you get to go to a pageant overseas, you will see this magnified 100 times, by South American candidates.
“So be proud you are being picked on, you are worthy of it.“
Desmond Foulger died later in 2024.
Makeup artist and hair stylist to Miss New Zealand 2024 contestants, Hayden Rahim, claims she observed favouritism towards certain finalists.
“It was mean girls stuff. There was a real difference between how light-skinned girls were treated” she said.
“They were prioritised with grooming, walking and doing turns – they got more attention,” Rahim said.
Kenney denied this and said “At the end of the day, a pageant is a competition and not everyone can win. It can be devastating to not take home the reward.”
Samantha (Sammi) Poole, crowned Miss New Zealand in 2024 has since moved North to “escape the toxicity” from other finalists, she told the Herald.
The event coordinator, 22, who was born and raised in South Africa suffered racism at her school and entered the pageant to make friends - but had the worst year of her life, she said.
“My father is a black African and my mother is white. Some of the finalists sent threats to my lawyer saying I had to prove my citizenship because I wasn’t born in New Zealand,” Poole said.
Poole rejected the perception only blonde fair skinned women win Miss New Zealand.
“I think whoever won that year would have faced jealousy” Poole said.
Her mother, Denise Poole told the Herald she was pleased some of the controversies around the Miss New Zealand organisation were being raised.
The speech therapist said the past two years had been difficult for her daughter and they have distanced themselves from the organisation.
“Sammi tried to focus on making a positive impact during her year as Miss New Zealand in 2024; she worked with many local charities and schools. She puts her heart first in everything she does and didn’t let the negativity of those contestants stop her efforts.
“It saddened me that Sammi was sent nasty messages attacking her. She never retaliated or fed into the negative stereotypes associated with pageantry” Poole said.
Another contestant, a school teacher, 23, who asked to remain anonymous, said her experience in the 2023 Miss New Zealand pageant nearly destroyed her.
She said she was offered the opportunity to represent New Zealand at Miss Eco International in Egypt and claims her trip was cancelled two days before departure, following a disagreement with Kenney.
“This nearly broke me” she told the Herald. “I was suicidal and couldn’t stop crying for days. It felt ‘off’ from the beginning — the whole vibe was wrong,” she said.
Kenney confirmed she had offered to lend money to the teacher for her trip, then changed her mind when she heard allegations from other contestants that the teacher had “bad-mouthed” her.
The teacher said that during a session known as the Presenter’s Platform, contestants were encouraged to reveal traumatic personal experiences to a television presenter and fellow competitors, while on camera.
“At the time, I believed I was confiding in people who genuinely cared about me” she said.
“It felt emotionally manipulative. We were told to talk about our trauma to help us be ‘seen and heard,’ but it felt more like a way to test how mentally strong we were,” she said.
Poole disagreed. She told the Herald the experience may have been confronting but it was voluntary.
“The first day was teaching us how to speak publicly ‚the second day was more raw and emotional. I opened up about having an African father and moving to New Zealand with my mother.
Don’t enter Miss New Zealand it will ruin your life.
“It was heavy to unload about my struggles but it was a way of connecting with the other girls. I think what was missing was some guidance the next day about talking to professional therapist or psychologist.” Poole said.
Kenney said the feedback she has received from finalists about the Presenter’s Platform was “overwhelmingly positive.”
“You didn’t have to participate, you don’t have to say anything - it has always felt like a safe space.
“It helped the girls feel close and bond and that made them more confident. Last year was the first time we received negative feedback - we stopped immediately,” Kenney said.
van Kooten’s message to aspiring beauty queens is, “Don’t enter Miss New Zealand it will ruin your life.”
Carolyne Meng-Yee is an Auckland-based investigative journalist who won Best Documentary at the Voyager Media Awards. Recently she was runner-up for Best Editorial Campaign and part of a team that won Best Coverage of a Major News Event: Philip Polkinghorne Murder Trial. She worked for the Herald on Sunday then rejoined the Herald in 2016 after working as an award-winning current affairs producer at TVNZ’s 60 Minutes, 20/20 and Sunday.