Aside from the pain of getting called "Miss Piggy," a 24-pound weight gain during her reign was great for her career, Venezuela's former Miss Universe insists.
"It was the best thing that ever happened to me," Alicia Machado told a news conference Wednesday. "It gave me international publicity."Machado, 20, looking fit and making her first visit home since ending her reign a month ago, said she's gotten offers to act in movies and on television in the United States and Latin America.
The 5-foot-7-inch daughter of a candy store owner was crowned the world's most beautiful woman in May 1996 - weighing in then at a mere 119 pounds, according to her trainer.
By August, rumors were flying that Miss Universe officials had threatened to take back her crown if she didn't lose some newly added heft.
Machado said it was all nonsense.
"They never told me, `Alicia, you have to take off the pounds.' It was just the opposite," she said.
She said that in January she went to pageant officials to ask for help in shedding weight. They sent her for a two-week crash course with a personal trainer.
What she wasn't expecting was a media onslaught her first day in the gym, arranged by mega-builder and pageant co-owner Donald Trump.
Machado, who has said 80 photographers were "taking pictures and watching the little pig exercise," said she was still embarrassed by the publicity stunt.
"Mr. Donald Trump adores publicity. It's his main love," she said.
She said she gained weight because she missed home, had starved herself before the pageant and had plenty of chances to sample great food as she traveled the world.
Besides preparing now for an acting career, Machado said she also has invested with relatives in a restaurant in her hometown of Maracay, 60 miles west of Caracas.
She lashed out at Venezuelan reporters for publishing stories saying everything from that she was pregnant to that she stole Trump from his estranged wife, Marla Maples.