Oz Miss Universe contender brands her 3yr management contract a ‘prison sentence’

MELBOURNE - Australia’s Miss Universe hopeful Rachael Finch says that the three-year management contract he has been railroaded into after winning her crown makes her feel as if she has received a “prison sentence”.

The Sydney-based beauty, who was crowned in April, has hired lawyers to take her case to Miss Universe Australia, claiming she was rushed into signing the contract.

She has even written to the Miss Universe organisation in America, describing the meeting in which she signed her contract with Miss Universe Australia, locking her into the exclusive management agreement.

“Please try to imagine what stress Mum and I were under. I had not slept in the last 24 hours, was about to speak to an international audience on television and was being told to ‘hurry darl’,” the Courier Mail quoted her as having written to the organisation.

The 20-year-old claims that the terms of the contract have left her distraught.

“This was not at all what I would have agreed to if I were completely aware of the points within the Miss Universe Australia contract prior to entering,” she said.

“One would think that a newly crowned Miss Universe Australia would be jumping out of bed every morning bursting with excitement, eager to work hard to make a difference. But in my world, most nights I lay in bed for hours, crying, trying to come to terms with what I have to now deal with,” she added.

While Flinch declined comment on the leaked letter, it is understood that she was contacted by the president of the Miss Universe organisation in the US on Thursday.

Even though Flinch is said to have received thousands of dollars from designers and sponsors, she claims that she has been left to pick up the tab for her own travelling expenses.

According to other documents, lawyers believe that Finch has a case under the Fair Trading Act, considering the circumstances in which she signed the contract.

They had revised the agreement, and were waiting for the Miss Universe Australia organisation to sign it.

Deborah Miller, the national director of Miss Universe Australia, said that she had spent the day with Finch yesterday.

“We just went and saw a fashion client regarding an ambassadorship. It contradicts what’s going on,” she said.

She said that an elderly man who claimed to be linked to the pageant had been writing letters.

“It’s not factual,” she said.

Miller even warned that the negative publicity could affect Finch’s chances in the Miss Universe competition. (ANI)