The journey of Catriona Gray towards the Miss Universe 2018 crown was not the easiest as she had to best all other candidates.
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Her answer to the final question, "What is the most important lesson you've learned in your life and how would you apply it to your time as Miss Universe?" made her the eventual winner of the prestigious beauty pageant. Despite her winning the crown, some netizens criticized her answer, saying it was “romanticizing poverty,” which Catriona denied.
In a previous interview with veteran broadcaster Jessica Soho right after she won the crown, the beauty queen explained that it wasn’t her intention to romanticize poverty, but rather discuss the situation that she personally encountered during her immersion in the slums of Manila.
“I was not romanticizing poverty. I’m not saying it’s beautiful there. If you look at my answer in the context of looking at the first sentence, it does not romanticize poverty, because I start from that point,” she previously expressed.
“You know, there’s nothing beautiful about poverty, but in the people that you talk to, the teachers that I’ve met, the children, who I’ve heard their stories of, and the families that I’ve heard stories of. There’s something beautiful about their spirit, their will, their determination, and that was what I was referring to,” she maintained.
Because of her answer to the Miss Universe question, Young Focus Philippines, the foundation she worked with in the slums of Tondo, received several inquiries about how they could help.
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Not only did she win the Philippines' fourth Miss Universe crown, but she also helped the people she mentioned in her winning answer.
Fast forward to her life after Miss Universe, Catriona is still helping out several causes and has used her voice to influence others to do good as well.