Birds, tsunamis and the Disney – the origins behind one of the most important OG Maltese memes ever posted online has finally been revealed.

It was just a decade ago when Maltese model Claire Busuttil entered the Miss World 2011 competition, changing Maltese culture forever. 

During an important and personal interview with the judges, Busuttil starts off strong, saying she is an “adventurous individual” and describes herself as “determined”.

However, it wasn’t long before she ends up in a word soup salad featuring birds, sushi and the Disney as main ingredients. Saying she wanted to help Japan recover from their recent tsunami, she then turns to her real passion: birds.

And things quickly go off the rails.

“Birds, for me, is, like… is the only thing we have that flies, like, whoever dreams, you guys, that flies?” she says sagely. “It’s something like, it reminds me of freedom. It’s also similar like, to the way I like the Disney.”

A decade on, Busuttil joined radio hosts Nate, Frank & Rossi to break down what happened that fateful day.

Explaining that she had been told to “be herself” in an upcoming short interview with the judges, Busuttil began thinking about what she was going to talk about.

“Madoffi, madoffi, what do I like?” she recounted asking herself. “Birds, Disney, Japanese people… the problem was, everything got so jumbled up in my head that when I said it all, it came out really ugly, even grammatically.”

“My message really didn’t come out well, and I came out looking like a bigger bimbo than Nate. I admit it,” she laughed.