Anne Jakrajutatip made history when she purchased Miss Universe in October 2022, making her the first woman to own the organization since it began in 1952.
Jakrajutatip brought big changes to the pageant, including allowing all women 18 or older to compete.
But her time at the top of the world’s biggest pageant was frequently shadowed by controversy, and she ultimately stepped down in June 2025 following an investigation into her company, JKN Global, by Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission.
A Bangkok court issued a warrant for Jakrajutatip’s arrest in relation to an ongoing fraud case in November 2025. Jakrajutatip hasn’t publicly discussed the allegations and did not respond to Business Insider’s repeated requests for comment. Her whereabouts remain unknown.
Here’s what to know about Jakrajutatip.
Anne Jakrajutatip was born and raised in Bangkok, where she struggled with her gender identity from an early age.
During a January 2023 interview on “The Journal” podcast, Jakrajutatip said she had known she was “trapped in the wrong body” since age 5.
Jakrajutatip also told Them in June 2023 that she was bullied as a child and didn’t find her voice until she took a public speaking class in high school.
“I wanted to have the weapon that is the microphone to express my attitude and exhibit that leadership to everyone,” she said. “No more bullies. You cannot do anything harmful to me because I’m clever and smart and I can be successful.”
Jakrajutatip attended university in Sydney before returning home to take over her parents’ video-rental business.
Jakrajutatip graduated with a degree in international relations, paying her tuition with money she earned working at a gas station, according to Them.
At this point, Jakrajutatip said she knew she was a transgender woman, but she didn’t feel comfortable coming out in Thailand.
Jakrajutatip turned her parents’ store into a content distribution empire.
Jakrajutatip’s first major deal was with the BBC, she told The Guardian in 2023. She said she had spotted the documentary “Walking With Dinosaurs” at her parents’ store and offered to distribute the BBC series in Thailand.
The outlet reported that she sold a million copies and soon began distributing content from India, Japan, the US, and South Korea as well.
Jakrajutatip expanded JKN Global as she launched beauty lines and bought TV channels in Thailand.
Them reported that Jakrajutatip’s profile rose in Thailand as she appeared on the country’s version of “Shark Tank” and “Project Runway,” and she continued to expand her business portfolio by launching drinks and food supplements.
Jakrajutatip previously told The Guardian that Oprah Winfrey served as her main source of inspiration as she pursued a career in media. To this day, Winfrey is the only person that Jakrajutatip follows on Instagram.
In 2018, Jakrajutatip launched a nonprofit to support transgender people. Two years later, she underwent gender-affirming surgery.
According to Them, Jakrajutatip underwent surgery in 2020 and became a mother six months later.
She had a second child the following year.
Jakrajutatip knew she wanted to own Miss Universe after seeing Miss Spain 2018, Angela Ponce, make history.
Jakrajutatip told Them that she was in the audience when Ponce became the first transgender woman to compete at Miss Universe.
“I stood up and applauded for her. I cried, and she also cried on the stage,” Jakrajutatip said. “When I turned back, everyone just stood up after me and applauded her big time.”
“That moment, I thought, ‘This is it. This is a pageant I can turn into a platform, and it must be a women’s empowerment platform,'” she added.
Jakrajutatip bought Miss Universe for $20 million in October 2022.
Jakrajutatip acquired the Miss Universe brand just weeks after the Miss USA organization descended into chaos as contestants claimed the 2022 pageant had been rigged in favor of R’Bonney Gabriel, who went on to win Miss Universe months later.
In a statement sent to Business Insider after the announcement, Jakrajutatip said she was proud to take over the organization.
“We seek not only to continue its legacy of providing a platform to passionate individuals from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and traditions, but also to evolve the brand for the next generation,” she added.
During her first Miss Universe as the owner in January 2023, Jakrajutatip told pageant fans that she was ushering in a new era.
“From now on it’s going to be run by women, owned by a trans woman, for all women around the world,” she said.
Jakrajutatip’s company filed a “business rehabilitation” petition with Thailand’s bankruptcy court in 2023.
JKN Global had missed a payment on a multimillion-dollar loan in September 2023. The company said in a letter to Thailand’s stock exchange president that its financial liquidity management was “not in line with the expected forecast” and that it intended to restructure its debt.
After the news broke, Jakrajutatip told Miss Universe fans on Instagram that the pageant was her “first priority in life.”
“No matter how joyful or painful it’s gonna be…. Our universe must go on, must be great and must stay on top as the legendary Beauty Olympics in the World! I will sacrifice and do everything for the great success of OUR UNIVERSE!” she wrote in the post shared on November 9, 2023, which has since been taken down.
Jakrajutatip said diverse contestants “can compete, but they can’t win” in an October 2023 video that was later leaked to the press.
The video, obtained by Business Insider in 2024, showed Jakrajutatip and employees of the Miss Universe Organization during a staff meeting. In the footage, she can be heard saying that diverse pageant contestants were a “communication strategy.”
The video was filmed the same year that Jakrajutatip changed a major eligibility rule for the pageant, allowing all women 18 and over to compete. Previously, the pageant was open only to 18- to 28-year-old contestants.
In a statement posted on her Facebook page in February 2024, Jakrajutatip said the “malicious edited video was out of context” and that she had been discussing a potential Miss Universe reality show, not the pageant, during the meeting.
Jakrajutatip’s comments about a Miss Universe contestant’s appearance drew mixed responses in 2024.
In the weeks leading up to the Miss Universe 2024 pageant, Jakrajutatip went on Instagram Live with Osmel Sousa, who at the time was an advisor for the pageant. The pair began judging the contestants’ headshots, making faces and laughing at certain women.
Sousa had once told The New York Times that inner beauty “was something that unpretty women invented to justify themselves.”
In November 2024, after Miss Denmark Victoria Kjær Theilvig was crowned Miss Universe, Jakrajutatip told reporters that she didn’t believe the pageant needed to evolve any further. “We have blond and blue eyes,” Jakrajutatip said, referring to Theilvig’s appearance. “We already got the best here.”
Her comments drew mixed reactions from the global pageant community.
“I’m not really offended by it,” Chidimma Adetshina, who placed first runner-up at Miss Universe 2024, told Business Insider that November. “Maybe that’s just her perspective; maybe that’s how she felt about the evolution of Miss Universe.”
“The way they’re handling everything is laughable at a certain point,” Miss USA 2023 Noelia Voigt told Business Insider in August 2025. “How are you in charge of this organization and doing these things? It makes me really mad. This is straight-up clownery.”
In March 2025, a former Miss Universe judge alleged that Jakrajutatip had attempted to meddle with the results of the 2023 pageant.
Denise White, one of the judges for the November 2023 Miss Universe competition, told Business Insider that Jakrajutatip tried to pressure Paula Shugart to favor Miss Thailand in the pageant, wanting the contestant to make the top five. At the time, Shugart was the president of Miss Universe.
“She said, ‘I can’t believe Anne is telling me that, no matter what, we have to make sure Thailand is in the top five,'” White said, recalling her conversation with Shugart. White added that Shugart refused to comply with Jakrajutatip’s request and Thailand’s contestant was selected as the first runner-up on her own accord.
“There is nothing I have seen in Denise’s comments that I would refute,” Shugart said when Business Insider reached out for comment at the time.
Shugart resigned on the eve of the pageant’s final competition, ending her 23-year tenure.
Jakrajutatip didn’t respond to a request for comment at the time and never publicly addressed the allegation.
Days before the Miss Universe 2025 pageant was set to begin, the organization announced that Jakrajutatip was being replaced as CEO.
Mario Búcaro, who was Miss Universe’s vice president for international relations, took over the role just before the November 2025 pageant.
Rumors regarding Jakrajutatip’s departure from Miss Universe had been swirling since June 2025, when Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint alleging that she had included false and misleading information on financial statements. On June 6, Jakrajutatip’s company confirmed to the SEC that she had stepped down from JKN Global.
On November 26, the Associated Press reported that a Bangkok court had issued an arrest warrant for Jakrajutatip in an ongoing fraud case. Búcaro resigned as CEO of Miss Universe the following month after the pageant’s controversial final.
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