Beauty queen suffers head injuries when crown is pulled from her head during on-stage brawl

A beauty queen has had her crown stolen from her when a brawl broke out on stage, causing the woman to suffer head injuries.

Pushpika De Silva was crowned the 'Mrs Sri Lanka' title at a ceremony broadcast on national TV on Sunday.

The pageant, held in Colombo, is a major event with the prime minister's wife among those who attended.

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Moments after De Silva won the title of Sri Lanka's biggest beauty prize, the 2019 winner dramatically pulled the crown from De Silva's head claiming she could not be awarded the honour because she was divorced.

Caroline Jurie cited a pageant rule that competitors must be married and not divorced.

"There is a rule that prevents women who have already been married and are divorced, so I am taking steps to make the crown go to second place," Jurie told the audience.

Dramatic vision of the incident shows Jurie prying the crown from De Silva's head, but it gets stuck in her hair.

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She then hands the crown to the first runner up while De Silva tearfully walks off stage.

The prize has since been returned to De Silva, after pageant organisers confirmed she is not a divorcee but is separated.

In a Facebook post, De Silva says she went to hospital to be treated for head injuries after the incident due to "pain of my skull".

She described the incident as an "injustice and insult".

"I say a true queen is not a woman who snatches another woman's crown, but a woman who secretly sets another woman's crown," De Silva said in her post.

She is now vowing to take legal action for the "unreasonable and insulting" way she was treated.

"There are a lot of single mums like me today who are suffering in Sri Lanka," De Silva told a media conference. "This crown is dedicated to those women, those single mums who are suffering to raise their kids alone."

The national director of Mrs Sri Lanka World, Chandimal Jayasinghe, told the BBC that the crown has been returned to its rightful owner.

"We are disappointed…It was a disgrace how Caroline Jurie behaved on the stage and the Mrs World organisation has already begun an investigation on the matter."