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Beauty queen stumbles over Korea crisis
CARACAS | Thu Nov 25, 2010 12:36pm EST
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's former Miss Universe Alicia Machado closed her Twitter account after being mocked for confusing the Koreas with China.
Concerned by North Korea's artillery attack on a South Korean island, the 1996 beauty queen winner got muddled when tweeting for world peace via her @aliciamachado77 account.
"Tonight I want to ask you to join me in a prayer for peace, that these attacks between the Chinas do not make our situation worse," she wrote late on Tuesday.
Her gaffe unleashed a rush of insulting posts, prompting her to go offline. "I now have a lot of psychopaths on the account and it's best I start another one, kisses," she signed off, according to Venezuelan media.
Machado is no stranger to unwelcome attention. She caused a media furor by gaining 22 pounds (10 kg) right after her 1996 triumph and Miss Universe organization president Donald Trump called her an "eating machine."
(Reporting by Diego Ore; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Xavier Briand)
