Miss Universe 2017 recalls near-kidnapping: 'It was scary'

Miss South Africa Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters won the 66th Miss Universe pageant in November 2017. (Reuters)

Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters says being a pageant queen isn’t all tiaras and talent competitions. Sometimes you foil a carjacking plot!

“I was held up at gunpoint a month after I won Miss South Africa,” says the New York transplant.

“It was on June 7 of last year . . . I was in South Africa on my way to an event, and I was carjacked by five guys.”

She added: “It was scary — but the magic of that was I did a women’s empowerment course about three months prior to the incident, where they taught me what to do if you go through a situation like that. I was driving and I stopped at a red traffic light in broad daylight . . . When I saw the weapons, I immediately surrendered and gave up the car. But when I got out of the car, the guy actually tried to push me back in . . . I said to myself, ‘I’d rather be shot here than kidnapped and never be seen again.’

Miss Universe 2017, Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters, recalled a terrifying ordeal where she was almost kidnapped. (Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports)

“The second destination will never be better than the first. So I punched him in his throat and ran away.”

She figures: “So living in New York, no big deal . . . I am loving New York — there is something about the energy.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Post.