Former Malaysian beauty queen Larissa Ping is being criticized for defending Miss Universe Israel online.
Ping, who won the Miss World Malaysia title in 2018, drew backlash after calling out Malaysian keyboard warriors for cyberbullying Miss Universe Israel Tehila Levi, 19, on social media over her country’s recent bombardment of Palestinians. Following her reaction, Ping then became the target of cyberbullies, who have been posting profanities to her social media page ever since she spoke up Saturday.
“I have no words for the comments that I am getting in this post,” Ping, 22, reacted to the hate online yesterday. One of the comments said: “Beauty without brains is useless, wouldn’t it be better if you were bombed too?”
Insane… pic.twitter.com/cDhIsvW3bA
— Larissa Ping (@LarissaPing) May 16, 2021
Malaysians began bombarding Levi, who has served in the Israel Defense Forces, with hateful comments after she appeared in the national costume round of the Miss Universe pageant last week, while her government was retaliating heavily to Hamas militants in Gaza, killing more than a hundred Palestinians and several Israelis.
Among the things they said to Levi were, “Israel babi (pigs),” and “evil country.” Levi’s social media pages were no longer publicly available.
Ping said that she felt embarrassed to see those comments.
“I’m so embarrassed and mad at our Malaysian keyboard warriors who cyberbullied Miss Universe Israel,” she said Saturday before deleting the comment.
“It’s leaving such a bad image on Malaysia and it might affect our own Malaysian representative,” Ping added.
Yesterday, she reacted to the critics who attacked her online.
“I will never stand for violence no matter what race or religion it involves. You can never justify the act of killing innocent lives, and I am against all the violence that is happening in Palestine,” she said.
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