In a Facebook post on Monday, Pushpika De Silva said she was not divorced but separated.
The Mrs Sri Lanka beauty pageant descended into chaos at the weekend when a former title holder declared that the winner was ineligible because she was divorced, and forcibly removed her crown.
A video of the Sunday event opened with the 2019 winner of the competition and reigning Mrs World, Caroline Jurie, speaking to the audience shortly after the winner and runners-up were announced in Colombo. There is a rule that you have to be married and not divorced, so I am taking my first steps, saying that the crown goes to the first runner-up, Jurie said, before walking across the stage to remove the crown from Pushpika De Silva, standing with a bouquet of flowers in her arms.