Steve Harvey's Miss Universe gaffe sets off explosion of memes

The internet exploded with memes in the wake of Steve Harvey's catastrophic blunder during Miss Universe 2015 when he misread the winner, crowning Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo, erroneously for a good two minutes.

A visibly embarrassed Harvey then lumbered on the stage while Miss Colombia was basking in her moment of fame, stammering: "Ok, folks, uh, there's... I have to apologise."

"The first runner-up is Colombia."

As the audiences reeled in shock, the Internet lapped up every moment of the gaffe.

To add insult to injury, Harvey later misspelt the names of Philippines and Colombia in an apology tweet. He later deleted the tweet, but not before it was retweeted more than 30,000 times.

"I want to apologise emphatically to Miss Philippians and Miss Columbia. This was a terribly honest human mistake and I am so regretful."

The 58-year-old comedian was later spotted backstage apologising to Miss Universe 2015 and Miss Philippines Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach for the error.

Donald Trump, who used to own part of the Miss Universe Organisation which runs the pageant, until he relinquished his stake after making controversial remarks on immigrants, later gleefully retweeted: "#MissUniverse DonaldTrump must be overjoyed that as soon as he sells the pageant it goes off the rails. We need you Mr Trump."

"Very sad what happened last night at the Miss Universe Pageant. I sold it 6 months ago for a record price. This would never have happened!" he tweeted again.

grongloh@sph.com.sg

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