MANILA – Better late than never.

It took Vietnamese beauty queen Nguyen Loan a year to apologize to Miss International 2016 Kylie Verzosa over her negative comment about the Filipina’s appearance.

The newly crowned Miss Vietnam 2017 took to social media to explain her “ugly” remark on Verzosa’s swimsuit photo posted on the Instagram page of a pageant website back in 2016.

A screenshot of her comment was recently re-posted online, prompting Nguyen to issue an apology to appease Filipino pageant fans.

A post shared by MissSphilippines🇵🇭 (@misssphilippines) on Oct 18, 2017 at 7:42pm PDT

“I would like to clarify a comment that I made last year. Please give me a minute to explain,” she said in an Instagram post over the weekend.

“A year ago, when I was checking information on social media, I saw a picture of Kylie, Miss International 2016. Just by natural reaction, I thought that it was not a good picture of her and I commented based on my honest feelings. You would agree with me that sometimes, even the most beautiful person could have a non-photogenic picture… due to the angle, lighting, or a wrong moment,” she continued. “Perhaps I could have stated things more clearly but due to my limited English, I made you all misunderstand me.”

Nguyen said she “immediately deleted the comment” after she realized “that I did not use my words correctly.”

A post shared by Loan Nguyen (@nguyenloanvn) on Oct 20, 2017 at 2:08am PDT

Explaining why she kept silent all this time, the Miss Vietnam 2017 titleholder said: “I did not want to cause any more misunderstandings or accidentally hurt anyone’s feelings (including Kylie’s).”

“I am so sorry for any inconvenience caused. I sincerely apologize for hurting Kylie and you by accident,” she added, addressing Filipino pageant fans. “This is a lesson for me and I will take more care in the future.”

Nguyen is set to compete in the Miss Universe 2017 pageant in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 26 (US time), alongside Philippine bet Rachel Peters.

Verzosa, meanwhile, is preparing to pass on her Miss International crown.