The 2018 edition of the Miss Universe competition was held this past weekend. While Caroline and I didn’t watch it, I did see in one of my news feeds that Miss Philippines was the winner.
Given that Caroline’s heritage is the Philippines and we love travelling there, I of course mentioned it to her, and she recalled that this isn’t the first time recently that Miss Philippines won.
In fact, Miss Philippines was the winner in 2015 when Steve Harvey famously misread the information in the envelope and incorrectly named Miss Colombia the winner instead of first runner up.
At around 2:45 in the clip, Steve Harvey apologizes for the mistake and then Miss Philippines is crowned.
Amazingly, and to his credit, Steve Harvey was brought back as the host and has continued hosting it since.
Fast forward to 2018 Miss Universe competition
In this years Miss Universe, Natalia Carvajal of Costa Rica finished in the top 10, and had a brief interaction with Steve Harvey when he introduced her as being in the top 20.
While I suppose it is possible this was an off the cuff interaction, I’m sure this was staged, given that Natalia Carvajal is accustomed to being in front of the camera as a TV personality in Costa Rica and is from the same region of the world as Colombia. She did a great job in pulling this off, and it is great how Steve Harvey doesn’t mind making fun of himself for the incident.
If it wasn’t staged, then it was brilliant!
Notable in Natalia’s career is that she was was crowned Miss Eco Universe in 2016 and then was a contestant in the Costa Rica version of Dancing With The Stars in 2017.
Thanks Natalia Carvajal for making us laugh, to Steve Harvey for having a great sense of humor, and congrats to Costa Rica for placing in the Miss Universe top 10.
And Caroline and I certainly enjoyed this fleeting pop culture crossover between the Philippines and Costa Rica!
We are Scott and Caroline, 50-somethings who spent the first 20+ years of our adult lives in New York City, working traditional careers and raising 2 kids. We left full-time work in our mid-40’s for location-independent, part-time consulting projects and real estate investing, in order to create a more flexible and travel-centric lifestyle. 
Financial independence and early retirement is not something we originally focused on, but over time realized it was possible. Our free report, 
