RHON­DOR DOWLAT 

Se­nior Re­porter 

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt 

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Miss Uni­verse del­e­gate, Jenelle Thongs, has hit back at crit­ics who wad­ed in­to her ap­pear­ance and wardrobe, by say­ing she will “al­ways be that girl.”

Her re­sponse came yes­ter­day as it was an­nounced that she was crowned Miss Con­ge­nial­i­ty dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary com­pe­ti­tion of Miss Uni­verse 2024 in Mex­i­co City. 

In the last few days, Thongs, 32, has faced a bar­rage of so­cial me­dia crit­i­cism, with some ques­tion­ing her choice of at­tire, oth­ers her ap­pear­ance, and some crit­i­cal of her age.

But in a post yes­ter­day on the of­fi­cial Miss Trinidad and To­ba­go Face­book page, Thongs said, “I’m sor­ry to dis­ap­point the haters, but I am that girl!”

In a four-minute and 34-sec­ond video, Thongs said she was “bliss­ful­ly un­aware” of the so­cial me­dia crit­i­cism, but want­ed to ad­dress the is­sue.

“I was so ap­palled, sur­prised, tak­en aback ... Hear­ing things about your­self and see­ing such com­ments right be­fore step­ping on­to the big stage can af­fect your psy­che, but I chose to chan­nel it in­to some­thing pos­i­tive,” she said.

“I’m sor­ry to dis­ap­point the haters, but I will al­ways be that girl. I can­not think of my­self small, and if my con­fi­dence both­ers you, I’m sor­ry. Your words don’t get to me; they fu­el me. I will nev­er dim my light for any­one else.” Dur­ing the record­ing, two oth­er Miss Uni­verse con­tes­tants, Miss Lebanon and Miss Cam­bo­dia, praised Thongs. Miss Cam­bo­dia shout­ed, “Yes, she’s the best, you guys don’t know.”

De­spite the “noise”, Thongs has al­so re­ceived an out­pour­ing of sup­port and love lo­cal­ly, with many cit­i­zens tak­ing to so­cial me­dia to of­fer her kind words and en­cour­age­ment.

On Thurs­day, Thongs’ “au­then­tic­i­ty, warmth, and re­silience” shone through, earn­ing her the cov­et­ed Miss Con­ge­nial­i­ty ti­tle. The award, giv­en to the con­tes­tant deemed most ap­proach­able and kind­heart­ed by the peers, un­der­scores the del­e­gate’s abil­i­ty to con­nect mean­ing­ful­ly with oth­ers.

“I am so blessed and ho­n­oured to be giv­en this award be­cause it tru­ly means I achieved what I set out to do, to make last­ing con­nec­tions and im­pres­sions with the girls, the team, and every­one in­volved,” Thongs said in a video.

The record­ing was al­so shared by Miss Uni­verse. “This win is not just my own; it’s a win for all of us as we cham­pi­on women em­pow­er­ment and re­spect for cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences. There’s more that unites us than sep­a­rates us.”

Thongs al­so high­light­ed her per­son­al project, The Sprout­ing Onion, which fo­cus­es on em­pow­er­ing in­di­vid­u­als by ad­dress­ing their psy­cho­log­i­cal and cog­ni­tive lay­ers to fos­ter per­son­al growth and com­mu­ni­ty bet­ter­ment. “I want to help oth­ers shine as bright­ly as they can,” she said.

Ear­li­er, Thongs had shared a heart­felt mes­sage on so­cial me­dia, thank­ing her fam­i­ly, friends, spon­sors, and the lo­cal Miss Uni­verse or­gan­i­sa­tion for their sup­port. “Jour­ney­ing with me to the uni­verse has been noth­ing short of a dream. To Trinidad and To­ba­go, I bleed red, white, and black for you, liv­ing our na­tion­al mot­to of uni­ty every day on this glob­al stage. Tonight, as I step out, I give all glo­ry to God for see­ing this dream through,” she wrote.

The Miss Uni­verse or­gan­i­sa­tion cel­e­brat­ed her achieve­ment, stat­ing, “We’re thrilled to an­nounce Janelle Thongs as our Miss Con­ge­nial­i­ty win­ner! Her kind­ness and warmth have cap­tured our hearts.”

The fi­nals of the 73rd Miss Uni­verse take place to­day at the Are­na CD­MX in Mex­i­co City.