Wilnelia Merced
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Wilnelia Merced (born approx. 1957) is a Puerto Rican who won the Miss World title in 1975, becoming the first, and so far only woman from Puerto Rico to ever win that competition.
Miss Merced was the only Puerto Rican candidate never to have to go through regional beauty contests in order to make it to Miss World. As soon as she filled her application to compete, she was taken to the organizers of Puerto Rico's national competition, who handpicked her as their representative.
She made history in the contest and then faced a difficult year. The last Miss World before her had caused controversy by posing naked for a magazine and having a child out of wedlock. So it was Merced's task to bring back some respectability to the contest.
As Miss World, she is said to have been a overseas sensation by many connoisseurs of this pageant. She was invited to pre-civil war El Salvador by that country's government, and there, she delivered a speech motivating Salvadorean women to do their best when representing that country's women on international beauty contests. She travelled to many other places, and fell in love with England, which she would later make her home.
After leaving her crown, in 1976, she was signed by Ford Models in New York, also becoming the first Puerto Rican woman ever to be signed as a model by that agency.
1978 was an important year for her, a giant poster of her being displayed at Times Square, and she was introduced, at a London Miss World competition gala to British television entertainer Bruce Forsyth.
Merced and Forsyth married in 1979. While still a public figure both at home in Puerto Rico and in her adopted England, she retired as a model after her wedding.
During the 1980s, she and her husband travelled back and forth between their British home and Puerto Rico, where he learned her country's culture and she would keep in touch with her family and friends. She declared Puerto Rico to be her first home, and England her second.
They had a son in 1988, and she became in the 1990s, the owner of Miss World Puerto Rico. Her trips to her island also give her an opportunity to visit her mother (who is Miss World Puerto Ricos organizer) frequently, and she also takes her mother to her mansion in England every year. In addition to that house, she and Forsyth own a house in Palma De Mallorca, and other houses in different locations.
She also has a foundation to help Puerto Rico's under-privileged children, for which she organizes charity balls, which have been attended by such celebrities as Sarah Ferguson, and fashion designer Carolina Herrera.
In 2002 and during one of her visits to Puerto Rico, her London mansion was broken into by thieves, who injured one of her maids. All members of her family were in Puerto Rico at the time and her maid was able to recover during a short hospital stay. She later declared to Vea magazine in Puerto Rico that this incident concerned her and her family greatly, and that she would bring up their mansion's security level after that.
Ms. Merced and Mr. Forsyth, who are constantly hounded by paparazzi photographers in London, are still happily married.