Zuleyka Rivera’s unfair 49 seconds, the Miss Universe who crashed Internet with 'Despacito'

Even science can tell us why 'Despacito' is so hard to ignore, because of the long pause Luis Fonsi makes at " Deees... paaa... cito". Spanish musician and producer, Nahúm García, puts it this way: “You can laugh about Despacito, but the way it breaks up the rhythm before the verse is pure genius. It’s the key to this song”.

However, there is another factor we can’t ignore, because someone else appears in the 'Despacito' video-clip, who has been an expert in becoming unforgettable: former Miss Universe and actress, Zuleyka Rivera, who has been criticized for her performance in the 2018 Grammy awards, and has defended herself in her Instagram account: "The day that all these critics set foot on the stage of the Grammies, their opinion will be worth something. Meanwhile, they can sit right there, cute and critical, on the other side of the TV screen ".

Criticism focuses on how late she came into the song, almost two minutes after it started. That meant she danced for only 49 seconds, shorter than one would expect for someone known as Luis Fonsi’s muse. However, this was clearly not Zuleyka’s responsibility, but the people who planned her choreography.

If anyone knows how to stand up straight on the stage, with everyone on the planet watching, she would be the one. Zuleyka has said that her childhood was happy, but difficult. Her parents lived in a house that didn’t even have electricity, and they sent her to a nanny who taught her to handle tableware, and to sew and cook. Then, a neighbor who was studying cosmetology saw her in the street, and helped her run for Miss Puerto Rico.

This made Zuleyka world-famous, when she became the fifth Puerto Rican to win Miss Universe. She certainly stood right up on the stage that day, when she was crowned, and congratulated by her fellow contestants. Even though she was not feeling so great that day – they say it must have been the heat, and the weight of her dress – after another five minutes she fainted and collapsed on the floor. But she made sure that her health would not tarnish her crowning moment!

Although she was Miss Universe for only ten months, Zuleyka Rivera has given her all to become unforgettable: she debuted on telenovela soap operas in 2007, the year that she turned over her crown, in 'Dame chocolate' and then in 'Alguien te mira', 'Aurora' and 'Rosario'. This last one was after taking a year off to have her son, Sebastián José Barea-Rivera.

But Zuleyka has also stayed in the public eye with her polemic private life, such as her separation from basketball star José Juan Barea; she has also crashed the Internet with her exercise routines, posing with a swimsuit made of sticky notes, and with her ' twerking' dedicated to Daddy Yankee’s new song, 'Dura'. We are sure that Zuleyka will not let any criticism of her 'Despacito' get her down, and we will have her stage center for a long time.