A run-up to the Miss Universe contest in Puerto Rico, to be held on May 11th, was marred with a scandal.

The contest organizers spent the whole night investigating whether Miss France began life as a man. Elodie Gossuin, the pretty 19-year-old Gallic contestant who arrived the day before yesterday in Puerto Rico for the pageant, was due to be interrogated about whether she was a transsexual or a transvestite, Miss Universe officials told New York Daily News. "Our regulations say that all delegates must be natural-born females," says spokeswoman Mary Hilliard McMillan. "If she does turn out to be a man, we'll put her on the first plane back to France." Actually, the scandal had been triggered by one of French web sites which asserted that Miss Gossuin in reality was Nicolas Levanner, a 27-yearold transvestite, who was a dancer in a cabaret. Those allegations angered the organizers of the Miss France contest. Genevieve de Fontene, the contest’s spokeswoman, categorically insisted that the contest’s winner was female. In the meantime, the poor would-be Miss Universe is sitting on her suitcases and waiting for her fate to be decided.