The Miss Universe Flub: How Steve Harvey Got It Right

It wasn’t a punch line in one of comedian Steve Harvey’s standup routines, though it easily could have been. No, this was unfortunately real: last night, in front of millions of people, the host of Miss Universe 2015 called the wrong name for the winner of the biggest pageant in the world.

I don’t make it a habit to watch beauty pageants (or scholarship programs, or whatever the politically correct name for them is these days), but my TV just happened to be tuned in as the fiasco unfolded in real-time.

For those who didn’t watch or haven’t yet seen the clip, the moment was exactly as mortifying as it sounds.

Harvey called Miss Colombia at the winner. She was crowned and began to take what should have been her “first walk as Miss Universe” across the stage, but within seconds it was evident something was amiss.

Instead of finishing her parade, Miss Colombia stopped and stood in place, waving at the crowd with what looked like a bit of uncertainty. This is where we’d naturally expect to see Steve or perhaps the previous Miss Universe approach her for a post-crowning interview. Instead things seemed to stall, the director cutting back and forth between alternating angles of the prematurely-crowned Ariadna Gutierrez.

I’m sure behind the scenes, sh*t was hitting the fan.

After a few minutes—though the reason for the delay wasn’t yet apparent—Harvey appeared back on stage, looking exactly the way they say someone looks when they’ve just seen a ghost.

His words: “I have to apologize.” …Painfully long pause… “The runner up is Colombia.”

Cut to a terribly uncomfortable shot of Miss Philippines realizing that it was, in fact, she that had won the pageant, all while another woman was still wearing the crown.

Awkward!

Harvey went on to explain that it was not a tabulating error, but his own mistake that was to blame for the confusion. He held up the card with the results for all to see.

“I will take responsibility for this. It was my mistake,” he said, hands visibly shaking. “It was on the card. Horrible mistake. But the right thing, I can show it to you right here. The first runner up is Colombia. It is my mistake.”

As a regular old American television viewer, my first instinct was to want to skewer Steve Harvey for what seems like such an obvious—and amateur—mistake.

But as a PR practitioner, my very next instinct was to commend him for doing the best thing he possibly could have done in a terribly unfortunate moment: acknowledging the mistake, correcting it, and taking full responsibility for the error.

Here’s the thing—we all make mistakes. Sometimes, we make horrible ones. The kind that make our stomach sink and our heart start thumping as soon as we realize the magnitude of our error.

Lucky for most of us, these mistakes don’t happen live in front of millions of people.

Harvey went on to further express his contrition in a series of Tweets, saying “I’d like to apologize wholeheartedly to Miss Colombia & Miss Philippines for my huge mistake. I feel terrible.”

Then, seconds later, “Secondly, I’d like to apologize to the viewers…that I disappointed as well. Again it was an honest mistake.”

A few more words of regret followed on Harvey’s Twitter shortly thereafter. The same can’t be said for the Miss Universe organization itself, which, more than an hour after the fatal error, had yet to acknowledge it.

Like him or hate him, we should give Steve Harvey a break. He made a mistake—a terrible one, yes, but an honest one. He admitted his mistake and issued a sincere apology within just a few moments.

If only so many major brands, CEOs and politicians could follow his lead.