Malaysian beauty queen accused of bullying and cheating after winning Miss Asia contest

Luwe Xin Hui was crowned Miss Asia Malaysia late last month but her victory opened the floodgates for online allegations that have led to calls for her to be stripped of the title. Maroosha Muzaffar reports

Miss Asia Malaysia winner Luwe Xin Hui has been embroiled in a bullying scandal (Screengrab/ATV News/YouTube)

Luwe Xin Hui’s moment of glory after being crowned Miss Asia Malaysia was short-lived. The beauty queen shared news of her win on her social media channels – but what followed was a torrent of accusations that have thrown the competition and its victor into chaos.

On 26 September, after winning the crown, 23-year-old Luwe shared a photo of her coronation on Instagram. But users claiming to be her former classmates soon flooded her comments section with accusations that she was once a school bully, as well as that she cheated on university papers.

A native of Malacca in Malaysia, the digital content creator-turned-beauty queen finds herself in the eye of a storm that has gripped the country, with at least 80 allegations of bullying levied against her.

Luwe is due to represent Malaysia at the ATV Miss Asia International 2023 finals, scheduled to take place in Shanghai, China at the end of the year. But the cloud of allegations that has grown since her victory now puts that into question.

Luwe has denied some of the bullying claims, while apologising to her former classmates for others, saying she has been “reflecting” on her past behaviour.

She is yet to respond directly to the university cheating allegations, which emerged just as the furore over the bullying claims was starting to die down. One person posted a screenshot purporting to show an online conversation with Luwe as recently as last year, in which she allegedly discusses paying a third party to write some of her university assignments.

Malay Mail reported that a social media user wrote on Chinese social media and e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu to share the allegation and included a screenshot of the alleged conversation with Luwe.

The screenshot purports to show the receipt of payment made to the person who allegedly completed an assignment for her.

After she shared a picture of her coronation on Instagram, one user detailed the alleged bullying by Luwe that included pouring water into her backpack at school.

“She used to abuse me verbally which led me to suffer from emotional distress,” the user was quoted as saying in a now-deleted comment. “The teacher’s indifference toward her actions made her even more aggressive, including actions like pouring water into my backpack and throwing my classmates’ water bottles into the trash.

“[She] bullied someone else’s daughter in middle school,” another user claimed. “My niece was once surrounded and beaten by her and her friends. If I remember correctly, she was slapped about three times.”

The post was at first shared widely, but some users then claimed that comments about Luwe’s alleged bullying were disappearing.

“You’re deleting comments after bullying people? I was one of the people bullied by you, so why don’t you come out and say that you’re sorry? Bullying people everywhere, double face,” said one Instagram comment.

“When you bully people, have you ever considered that they would have a destroyed childhood because of you? Some people have suffered from depression and they can’t sleep at night. Have you ever thought that you will [sic] ruin someone’s happy schooling experience?” claimed another user.

“Did you consider that when people think back to their schooling days, you were always the one with the ugly face of bullying? People with bad intentions do not deserve anyone’s respect.”

“I believe that the foremost criterion for beauty pageants should be an exemplary character, which she, the perpetrator, is devoid of,” said a user with the handle @teaxinyi.

“She was calling me ‘Egyptian Pharaoh’ simply because I had bangs at that time. Verbal bullying happened not just once, but every time when [sic] I encountered her in school,” said user @wngkngj.

“The 14-year-old me at that time ended up having trauma when using the same washroom.”

After leaving school, Luwe attended the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance in 2022. Local media reports said she worked for a time as a digital creator before finding success competing in beauty pageants.

One of her former classmates apologised for ignoring her alleged acts of bullying against a common friend. “The coward [in] me just stood by silently, and afterwards, all I could do was console my friend continuously... To be honest, I feel very guilty because I even persuaded my friend not to escalate the situation since we felt powerless against you.”

“She led the entire class to target me and constantly berated me. Her constant acts of verbal and cyberbullying towards me and my friends took a toll on my young self, both mentally and emotionally,” the former classmate continued.

Luwe, in a lengthy Instagram post, addressed the allegations and said she “spent some time thinking about the past and reflecting on my past”.

She apologised to some of her former classmates whom she addressed directly, but also said many bullying incidents described in the comments – including the water pouring and throwing her classmates’ bottles – were untrue.

Luwe said the attention on the claims had been “magnified” due to her beauty contest win, and refuted the suggestion that she “bullied 30 to 80 people”.

“I understand that my apology cannot change the harm caused to her, but I will always bear this guilt in my heart,” Luwe said, while addressing the classmate she called “Pharaoh of Egypt”.

For others, she said the bullying incidents never happened.

“It is a constant fact that I make fun of my classmates’ nicknames, and it is also a fact that I was once teased and ostracised by classmates with nicknames such as ‘Short Woman’,” Luwe said.

“In addition, the report that I bullied 30 to 80 people is also untrue. I admit that when I was young, I was indeed rebellious, had a bad temper, and was very rude. I will reflect on it, and I did pay the price today. For these numbers of people, I have to speak up for myself. Bullying 30 to 80 people is something I can’t do. It’s not feasible to think rationally.

“There were rumours that the school was ignoring my behaviour. I want to say sorry to my alma mater and clarify that the school did not condone me,” the beauty queen further said in her statement.

“The school took action due to long-term poor grooming, lateness, forgetting to swipe the card to re-sign, and quarrels with classmates. The school has school rules, and the fairness and justice of my alma mater will not change just because of me. I was even expelled from school because of a demerit.”

After The Independent reached out to Luwe for comment on the allegations including the university cheating claims, she responded saying she would issue another statement by 7 October to “clarify” further, but did not elaborate.

The bullying accusations have led the pageant organisers, Asia Television News (ATV), to issue a statement of their own as well as a video recording of Luwe apologising.

“Luwe Xin Hui, the winner of the 34th Miss Asia Malaysia-Singapore competition, was criticised online, accusing her of ‘bullying’ her classmates in middle school. After two days of reflection, she recorded a video to solemnly apologise to the students involved and clarify the false accusations one by one,” ATV said in a Facebook post.

Amid a number of online calls for Luwe to be stripped of her title, ATV invited people to write in to them with their accusations so they could investigate the claims. They called it an “important and complex” situation.

They said they will “uphold the principles of justice and fairness and resolutely oppose any form of bullying and discrimination, and will take proactive measures to investigate recent allegations”.

At least 14,000 bullying cases at school were recorded in Malaysia by its education ministry between 2012 and 2015, according to a 2018 Unicef report.