The Miss Universe pageant’s parent company has filed for bankruptcy, one year after CEO of JKN Global Group of Thailand and transgender activist Anne Jakrajutatip added the Miss Universe Organization to his portfolio for $20 million, and one year after the organization began to admit transgender contestants.

Jakrajutatip was celebrated as the pageant’s first female owner when he bought it in 2022 (former President Donald Trump owned the pageant until his campaign kicked off in 2015). Jakrajutatip promised to turn Miss Universe into a women’s empowerment platform, run by and for women.

“If you think about it, [the pageant] is for women and for LGBTQ [people], so who else should you sell [to] apart from trans women?” he said of the purchase. “You don’t have to consider where I come from, I have a global stage anyway. . . . I’m strong enough, qualified enough to make Miss Universe the perfect platform.”

JKN’s share price has fallen over 80 percent since 2022, the Daily Mail reported. Maybe the pageant didn’t live up to its slogan as “The Greatest Celebration of Women” when it began to promote male participants. Or, maybe a man wasn’t the right person to lead Miss Universe into a less misogynistic era.

“Trans women can do it and we’re going to transform the world by having everyone look at us. We can make it successful,” Jakrajutatip said in June.

Miss Universe 2023 will still take place in El Salvador this weekend with at least two biological men competing for the title. As part of the pageant’s new inclusive rules, contestants this year may hide their gender-neutral figures under capes during the swimsuit competition so the audience doesn’t “exploit” their sexuality. That might be the best news yet.