Miss South Africa Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters denies accusations that she wore latex gloves because she didn’t want to touch black children at a soup kitchen in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The beauty pageant winner, who is mixed race, is seen in photos wearing latex gloves while eating with black children at the soup kitchen last week.

Twitter.com users accused Miss South Africa of being racist. But she and other volunteers claim they wore the gloves to “be hygienic”.

“We thought it was the right thing to do, seeing as we were working with food,” said the 22-year-old, who helped to prepare the food.

Miss South Africa

But a witness who was there said Nel-Peters was “peeling potatoes without gloves for white folks.”

The community center that housed the soup kitchen feeds orphans and other vulnerable children, some of who are HIV positive.

Miss South Africa took to her Twitter account on Wednesday, July 5, to dispute the allegations.

“To everyone asking about the gloves, I truly hope that you’ll hear my heart and understand that it came from a place of wanting to do good,” she said in a video tweet.