The Performing Arts Department on July 7 rejected rumors that the organizers of the Miss Ethnic Vietnam pageant had fixed results and its newly crowned beauty had won the pageant thanks to money and her intimate relationship with the deputy head organizer’s teen son, which created quite a stir recently on online forums and personal pages.

In the report the department sent to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, it confirmed that it didn’t find any signs of result fixing, fraud or ill treatment of the contestants, as rumored.

The department also urged that investigations be launched to find out who spread the unfounded, slanderous rumors.

Shortly after the pageant’s finale in central Quang Nam province on June 26, the winner, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Anh, of Kinh ethnicity, which makes up the majority of the Vietnamese population, faced malicious rumors of buying the prize for VND1.5 billion (US$71,306), and her intimate relationship with the 15-year-old son of First Mrs. World Kim Hong, the pageant’s deputy head of the organizing board.

The pageant organizers were also anonymously accused of result fixing and unfair treatment of some contestants, which they denied.

Anh, currently a student at the Hanoi Open University, also publicly denied the outrageous rumors.

According to The thao Van hoa, Vu Tran Trieu Thu, who pocketed the pageant’s Miss Photogenic prize and is the alleged whistle-blower, recently revealed that Tran Anh K., one of the pageant’s makeup specialists, lured her into spreading the rumors.

The organizers are currently working closely with concerned agencies to bring to light who was actually behind this.