MANILA, Philippines – The official website of TV celebrity host Oprah Winfrey has denied that the talk show queen said Miss Philippines Shamcey Supsup should have won the Miss Universe 2011 title.

In the comments section of the site Oprah.com, OWNModerator posted: “There is no truth to the statement.”

“Please note that there are many rumors circulating on the internet. For this reason we encourage our members to visit the Press Room on Oprah.com to get the latest updates and news,” it added.

Winfrey’s alleged statement quickly spread on social networking sites, particularly on Facebook and Twitter, hours after Miss Angola’s Leila Lopes was crowned Miss Universe.

Winfrey supposedly made the remarks via NBC, the US network that aired the beauty pageant live on Monday night (Tuesday morning in Manila).

The alleged statement read: “I have reservations with the results. If the only basis is the Q and A portion, after having been trimmed down to 5, Ms. Philippines deserved to win. What made her different from the rest is that she had no seconds to rethink of her answer as she had no interpreter to break the ice. The rest had their interpreters and having breaks on seconds to think about their answers. Hands down, Ms. Philippines answered straight to the point.”

Supsup finished 3rd runner up in the competition, behind winner Miss Angola, 1st runner up Miss Ukraine Olesya Stefanko and 2nd runner up Miss Brazil Priscila Machado.

Winfrey has been described as “one of the most influential women in America”, thanks largely to the popularity of “The Oprah Winfrey Show”.

The talk show has an estimated 44 million US viewers a week.

Because of her popularity, Winfrey’s endorsements have been known to have a powerful effect on the public, which has been dubbed by US media as “The Oprah Effect”.