A controversial skit where Gisele Bundchen was to be mugged may have been yanked from the opening ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games following local outcry, but the international supermodel still managed to make a show-stopping appearance.

Donning a silver dress that sparkled in the huge arena, Bundchen had perhaps her longest catwalk ever as 'The Girl From Ipanema' played during the Bossa segment of the opening ceremony to rousing applause.

The supermodel's appearance is a far cry from what was originally conceived. The earlier planned skit involved Bundchen getting robbed by a poor black boy, highlighting the Olympic host city's high crime rate and poverty. After charges the performance played into racial stereotypes it was pulled from the Opening Ceremony despite being featured during weekend rehearsals for the four-hour spectacle.

Filmmaker Fernando Meirelles, the Opening Ceremony's creative director, told The Washington Post the skit had been misinterpreted and called the controversy a "tremendous misunderstanding."



He told the paper the skit actually involved a food vendor on the beach trying to take a selfie with Bundchen, then security guards chasing the vendor. Bundchen then jumps in to protect the vendor, the Post reported.

"It was a gag that was not funny so we cut it," Meirelles told the paper. "There was nothing that looked like a robbery in the scene except two security guards chasing after a vendor. They are three professional clowns."



Fernando Alvares Salis, head of the communications department at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, who was in attendance at Sunday's dress rehearsal, told the Post the skit was "totally unacceptable."