Zozibini Tunzi’s Miss Universe 2019 win confirms the “delay is not denial” adage to be true. Tunzi came into the pageantry spotlight when she entered Miss Mamelodi Sundowns national pageant in 2015 and became one of the Western Cape princesses and Miss South Africa in 2017.
Although luck wasn’t on her side in 2017, she re-entered Miss South Africa in 2019 and scooped the crown. A win that automatically placed her in the Miss Universe pageant in Atlanta, USA, representing South Africa – and representing all the Black girls in the world. Zozibini is the first Miss Universe with ethnic hair.
“I grew up in a world where a woman who looks like me, with my kind of skin and my kind of hair, was never considered to be beautiful. And I think that it’s time that that stops today. I want children to look at me and see my face, and I want them to see their faces reflected in mine”, said Tunzi ahead of her crowning last night.
This is the third Miss Universe crown for South Africa – with the first one won by Margaret Gardiner in 1978 and second one by Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters in 2017. South Africa missed the crown by one seat in 2018 when Tamaryn Green was placed Miss Universe 2018 First Runner Up.
Tunzi was born in Tsolo, Eastern Cape and completed Public Relations at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. She is set to relocate to the InternationalTrump Towers overlooking Central Park in New York where she will be based during her Miss Universe reign.
