French Quarter: --- The winner of the Thick and Curvy Queen pageant that was held on October 24 at Celebration Palace said she is still waiting to get the gifts that were promised to the contestants. Natasha Lake an assistant nurse by profession said she always wanted to be part of a queen show and when she saw the thick and curvy pageant promotion, she entered the contest.
Lake said she spent $3694.75 to fully participate in the show and to date she cannot get her prize money which is supposed to be $5000 cash including other prizes. Natasha Lake said she won the queen prize ($5000), best cocktail wear (lunch at a restaurant), best bed night wear (weekend stay at a hotel), best eveningwear (dinner at a luxurious restaurant with limousine service), contestant that sells the most tickets would receive a laptop, photogenic (will receive a digital camera), and popularity (would receive a flat screen television. Lake said she sold 60 tickets for the show and thus she was the one who won the prize for the most ticket sale, but to date all she has is the crown and the trophies.
Lake said she waited for days to see if the sponsors would call her to pick up her gifts but they never did because shortly before the line up the promoter David Williams announced that the first prize winner would not get the promised $5000, instead they would only receive $2000 since they did not make enough monies to cover the expenses and the prize monies. Lake said she made contact with Winifred Alexander another promoter of the show on several occasions and was told they have the prizes but not the $5000. She said the promoter told her they were to going to see when they could get all the participants together and a presentation would be made, but to date that did not happen. She said she even went to the police to file a complaint and the police also called the promoters but nothing has changed. “they kept saying they have the prizes but they don’t have the money, the police even asked them why they are the ones with the prizes and not the winner”. Lake explained.
Lake explained that she asked the promoters if they had the monies they were offering and was told the money has been guaranteed. The young woman said she worked hard and even spent her monies to make sure she was fully ready, with this she said she won the first prize and was crowned queen of the Miss Thick and Curvy Pageant. Lake said on that night a few things happened which to date could not be explained. The first time contestant said she learnt that the promoter David Williams was also the chaperone for one of the contestants and he was even leaking out information to the contestants. She said on the night of the show she asked Williams if he was the chaperone for one of the contestants and he denied everything. She further explained that when the girl (contestant) arrived at the location David and her had an argument and the girl exposed what Williams was allegedly doing to the contestants. “I was told that my specialty would be belly dancing and he David told the other contestants they had to come with something better.” Lake said when she heard this she was shocked because the only persons that knew what she was working on were the promoters.
In an invited comment, David Williams said that their main sponsor TELEM did not live up to their promises, which is the first prize money. Williams said they did not make enough money to give the contestants what was originally promised to them since they had expenses. He said they have all the other prizes except the full $5000. Williams said all his other contestants received their prizes and the only person who rejected what he offered was Lake. Williams said he has a contract with the contestants, which stated that the prize money was subject to change. He said while the contract stated all the rules and what are the expectations of the contestants there is no fix amount of money. He said it is clear in the contract that the prize would change due the contestant participation of the sale of tickets. Williams said Lake could go as far as she wanted with this matter because she would not get that money. He said they made it clear on the week of the show that they were not going to live up to the $5000 due to the pull out from TELEM “TELEM did not even give us the voting code for the show” Williams said.
He said they told the contestants that the winner would get $2000, first runner up would receive $1000, while the third runner up would get $500.
He said that from the inception he told the contestants that he was not sure if TELEM would give them the prize money. Williams said the other contestants received their prizes and the only contestant who refused to accept what they have for them was Lake.