A Copenhagen bar is being accused of discrimination after a transsexual woman said the owners rigged a competition to ensure she didn’t win the prize of breast enlargement surgery. Malene Lang Hansen was set to win the surgery with almost double the votes of the second-place contender when a new ‘mystery’ woman overtook her in the last two days of the competition.
The scheme, organised by Kostbar on Gothersgad, saw applicants upload their image and an explanation of why they should win the implants to the bar’s Facebook page. The organisers said the person with the highest number or ‘likes’ would win, but although Malene had 1,600 with just days to go, a new woman was brought into the competition, quickly amassing 4,000 votes to claim the prize.
“I think it’s very suspicious that two days before the end of the competition a new girl suddenly shows up who quickly gains 3,700 votes,” Hansen told Politiken. “I, and many others, think the Kostbar has cheated. I am the moral winner of the silicone breasts but obviously it didn’t fit their advertising campaign,” she added.
Politiken also claims that the photograph of the mystery winning lady is a generic shot that can be found in different places online. The newspaper explains the late contender’s huge popularity by accusing the bar of buying ‘likes’ from websites that sell 2,000 for as little as USD 100. It claims this theory is also backed up by the fact that the woman received almost 4,000 votes in the first 24 hours but only a handful thereafter.
However, Thomas Søgaard, the owner of Kostbar, denies that the competition was rigged. “We have had no influence on the result of the competition,” Hansen wrote on Facebook. “We are sorry that a participant is sad not to have won but the same rules applied to everyone. We cannot give a prize for second place as that would be unfair to the other participants. We wish the winner congratulations and thank everyone for the interest that has been shown for the competition.”