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A dozen camels got disqualified from Saudi beauty pageant. Due to Botox

Who says humans are the only ones getting ‘things done’ to their faces and bodies? In Saudi Arabia, camels are into Botox too.

Yes, you read that right. Twelve camels have been disqualified from Saudi Arabia’s annual camel beauty contest after it was found that they have received botulinum toxin aka Botox injections to make their ‘pouts’ fuller. Again, you can’t make this stuff up.

The King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, which happens in the Southern Terrains of Al-Dahna Desert, witnesses about 30,000 camels gathering for ‘beauty contests’ where they are judged on the basis of their delicate ears, big noses and pouty lips. A full, droopy lip and large features can help a camel achieve celebrity-status in the multi-million dollar industry of camel pageants.

Given the lure of 20m Saudi riyals (£3.7m) as prize money,  some owners were tempted to cheat in this year’s pageant. Ali Al Mazrouei, a regular attendee at the festival, and the son of a top in Saudi told The National:

“They use Botox for the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw. It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes it’s like, Oh look at how big is that head is. It has big lips, a big nose. In camel racing, whoever is using drugs is fined about 50,000 Dirhams in Abu Dhabi. The fine is not yet applied for camel beauty pageants.”

Checkout this video on camel pageantry and its craze in Saudi:

The month-long festival is the biggest in the Gulf and millions of Saudi riyals are spent on it every year. Guess if you want to shift to Saudi, it’s a camel’s life you’d want. Checkout how Twitter reacted to this news:

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