Mia Dio, the newly crowned Miss Universe Cuba 2026, shared in an interview that during the final night of the 2025 pageant, she competed with partial facial paralysis caused by a poorly administered Botox injection, an episode she kept secret for months and now recounts in detail.
The 25-year-old revealed it on the Enrique Santos Show on Instagram, where she explained that she had botox applied to her jaw without the approval of the pageant organization, approximately two weeks before the final gala of Miss Universe Cuba 2025. "I had botox in my jaw. The doctor made a mistake," she admitted.
The side effects did not appear immediately; they only emerged three days before the decisive night, when it was already impossible to reverse the damage. "Imagine having to go out, answer questions, and also perform well on stage while you're worried about whether you're drooling or not," she described.
What troubled her the most was the distortion of her smile. Every time she tried to smile, her face produced an involuntary expression that she herself compared to a grimace of discomfort, which many noticed on social media at that moment.
Mia Dio chose not to say anything to anyone during the competition. However, that decision had consequences on social media: "There were many videos on TikTok with my face, thinking that I was making a sour expression because I lost, but in reality, I was smiling."
Despite everything, she reached the Top 5 of Miss Universe Cuba 2025 and won the title of Miss Popularity in that edition. However, the recovery was slow and challenging: the paralysis took seven months to completely disappear.
"That greatly affected my mental health because I felt it was something beyond my control, and besides, it's awful to feel shame when you want to express happiness," she admitted. For her, the impact was twofold: as a content creator and a Miss Universe Cuba hopeful, "the smile is everything."
In the interview, the new queen also took the opportunity to publicly apologize to her director for acting on her own: "I want to apologize to my director for not listening and for making things up, as my mom says."
A year later, Mia Dio returned to the pageant representing Isla de la Juventud and this time followed the organization's instructions to the letter. She had botox administered with their endorsement and did not experience any adverse effects. On August 20, she was crowned Miss Universe Cuba 2026 by Lina Luaces, her predecessor in the title, among 19 finalists.
Now, with the crown and the experience of that episode behind her, Mia Dio is preparing to represent Cuba at Miss Universe 2026, the final of which is scheduled for November 24 at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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