Christina Sawaya

Christina Sawaya (Arabic: كريستينا صوايا‎) (born 16 August 1980), is a Lebanese beauty queen. As part of her modelling career, Christina entered a series of pageants between 1998 and 2002 in which she became the winner of "Miss University" Lebanon in 1998, and was chosen as "Top Lebanon Modeling 1999".

In 2001, Sawaya competed with 19 women to become Miss Lebanon 2001, where she also became eligible to enter in the Miss Universe, Miss World and Miss International pageants. She represented her country in the 2001 Miss World pageant, wherein she was unplaced. But at the Miss Universe 2002 Pageant, Sawaya decided to drop out of the competition after stating that she would not compete in a pageant with Miss Israel, Yamit Har-Noy. She went on to win the Miss International 2002 beauty pageant in Tokyo on September 30, 2002.[1] Sawaya was chosen as Miss International among beauties from 51 countries.

She also became the first Miss International of Middle Eastern descent. In the same year, Miss World 2002 was Azra Akın from Turkey and the original winner of Miss Earth 2002 was Džejla Glavović from Bosnia and Herzegovina, which are all dominant Muslim countries. Christina Sawaya is a conservative Catholic Christian that comes from Lebanon, the only Arab country where the president is Christian by the constitution.

On 15 November 2003, Sawaya married Tony Baroud in Beirut. Baroud is a former member of the Lebanese national basketball team and now a sports commentator and TV entertainer with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. Tony also hosted the 2007 Miss Lebanon pageant.

The couple divorced in 2015.[2]