Miss Venezuela Dayana Mendoza, a former kidnapping victim, has beaten 79 of the world's most beautiful women to be crowned Miss Universe 2008.
Mendoza, 22, was once kidnapped in her homeland and she told reporters that experience taught her to keep cool under pressure, news agency Associated Press reported.
She told the Miss Universe website: "I was once kidnapped in what in my country is known as an express kidnapping. It was a very hard experience."
Miss New Zealand Samantha Powell failed to make the semi-finals.
The annual Miss Universe pageant – which tries to present itself as something more meaningful than a swimwear parade – was first held in Long Beach, California, in 1952.
The event was taken over in 1996 by US real estate mogul Donald Trump.
Communist-led Vietnam spent nearly US$20 million (NZ$26.60 million) on the event, including US$7 million on a new resort and convention centre to host the pageant, in a bid to promote tourism to the Southeast Asian nation.
The 15 semi-finalists named at the beginning of the show were from Venezuela, Kosovo, Mexico, Vietnam, South Africa, Australia, Japan, the Dominican Republic, Italy, Colombia, Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the United States and Spain.
