Dr Hadiya Marshall has crossed one thing off her bucket list. The reigning Miss Big & Beautiful said entering the pageant was to prove to herself that she could do it.
“The pageant was for me . . . . I had to prove to me that I could do anything that I want to,” she asserted during a chat with EASY magazine about what she’s been up to since winning the title in January and her reasons for entering.
Winning wasn’t something that she set out to do even with her mother Margaret’s words of “Always do your best” ringing in her ears. Capturing the crown and the title Miss Big & Beautiful 2019, titled I Am Woman, was a major fillip for her.
Hadiya, who said she is rather reserved and not a talker, noted that “a lot of people were probably surprised” when they heard she had entered the pageant.
“The people that really know me know that I’ve always been interested in make-up, hair, and clothes and those are the kinds of things I do in my spare time sometimes. I won’t say I’m the best at them, but I like to. I kinda wanted to show that side of me because of the fact that most people don’t know that there is that side to me, and most people would think that I chose a traditional career.
“I was seeing a lot of women that are in traditional careers or their career is one thing and then they have other parts to them, and they are able to explore those things. These are people in media and other careers and so I wanted to explore that. A lot of the women I was looking up to were in pageants.
“I thought I would be more comfortable entering Miss Big & Beautiful. They have a long-standing history. I always followed the page, saw it and thought that I would want to be in it. When the call went out for contestants, I signed up. I wanted to sign up the year before, but I was doing my internship at that time, and I would have 36-hour days so it was not possible,” she said. (GBM)
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