Roselyn Sanchez, the actress slated to co-host the Spanish-language simulcast of the 2015 "Miss USA" pageant, has joined fellow co-host Cristian de la Fuente in stepping down in response to Donald Trump's anti-immigrant remarks during his presidential speech last week.
The pair, along with Colombian singer J Balvin, withdrew from the show Thursday, the same day Univision announced it was canceling its broadcast of the pageant, which is run by the Miss Universe organization, owned jointly by NBCUniversal and Trump
, Us Magazine reported.
Trump made the comments about Mexico during his June 16 presidential bid announcement.
"When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best, they’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems with us,"
MSNBC quoted Trump as saying.
"They are bringing drugs and they are bringing crime, they’re rapists. Some, I assume, are good people."
Those words sparked strong backlash against Trump.
"I was very excited and proud to have been invited to participate in Miss USA, but as a Latina, that is now inconceivable," Sanchez said in a statement. "Although I am not Mexican, I am Puerto Rican and a proud Latina, and his comments were an insult to our culture. I won't sponsor anything produced by Donald Trump."
De la Fuente posted his viewpoint about withdrawing in a video aimed directly at Trump:
Trump told Deadline that he plans to file a lawsuit against Univision for its decision not to run the pageant.
“They have no right to terminate whatsoever, and they just called me recently to apologize,” he said, refusing to identify who had called him. “They know what they are doing is wrong. I wish we had gone with Telemundo; it would have gone a lot differently.”
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