Mrs. Sri Lanka beauty-pageant winner says her head was injured when a former contestant took her crown from her

• Pushpika De Silva was crowned Mrs. Sri Lanka on Sunday.
• Moments later, the 2019 winner, Caroline Jurie, took the crown from De Silva's head.
• De Silva said her head was injured.

A beauty-pageant winner says she was injured when her crown was forcefully removed from her head.

Pushpika De Silva was crowned Mrs. Sri Lanka on Sunday. Moments later, the 2019 pageant winner and current Mrs. World, Caroline Jurie, said De Silva was divorced and therefore ineligible.

A video of the ceremony, held at Nelum Pokuna Mahinda Rajapaksa Theatre in Colombo, shows Jurie taking De Silva's crown and placing it on the runner-up's head.

"There is a rule that you have to be married and not divorced, so I am taking my first steps in saying that the crown goes to the first runner-up," Jurie said in the video.

The pageant's rules say that contestants must be married and above the age of 18.

De Silva said in a Facebook post in Sinhala after the ceremony that her son had noticed that her head was injured.

"The pain of my skull when my crown was snatched from my head by the world married beauty queen, the pain I felt when I lost the crown is more than both. '... Mother's head is injured right..? Does it hurt mom?' I can't bear the pain I feel when my son listens," she wrote.

De Silva added that she is not divorced. "If I was a divorcée, I would dare them to submit my divorce script," she said.

The national director of Mrs. Sri Lanka World, Chandimal Jayasinghe, has said the crown will be returned to De Silva. He added that she was eligible because, while she is separated from her husband, she is not divorced.

"Only an individual who is legally divorced will not be allowed to compete in the pageant," Jayasinghe told Ceylon Today, an English-language newspaper in Sri Lanka, on Monday. "Pushpika may be in the process of a divorce, however, until a legal judgment is given on the matter, she is still considered a married woman, therefore we cannot comment any further on the matter."

"We are disappointed," he told BBC News. "It was a disgrace how Caroline Jurie behaved on the stage and the Mrs. World organization has already begun an investigation on the matter."

In a press conference after the ceremony, De Silva reportedly said, "There are a lot of single moms like me today who are suffering in Sri Lanka," adding, "This crown is dedicated to those women, those single mums who are suffering to raise their kids alone."

"I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all of you who supported me," De Silva wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. "I don't hate anyone and I've forgiven those who did that to me at the same moment. Nothing can be won by hate."

Jurie has remained silent. But sources close to her told the Colombo Gazette that she was expected to hold a press conference on Thursday.

De Silva, Jurie, and Jayasinghe did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.