News Americas, MIAMI, FL, Mon. Nov. 27, 2017: Miss Jamaica Universe 2017, Davina Bennett, on Sunday night stormed her way from wild card pick to second-runner up in the 2017 Miss Universe pageant that concluded in Las Vegas. She was bested only by Miss Colombia and Miss South Africa, who was crowned Miss Universe 2017 much to the thrill of Jamaicans globally and even Steve Harvey who called her inclusion in the top 16 wild card pick, a moment akin to Usain Bolt winning gold multiple times. Here are 10 things to know about this Caribbean beauty:
1: Miss Jamaica Universe and now the world’s third most beautiful woman is just 21 and stands at a whopping 5’ 9”
2: She is a former Pulse model who walked the runway of London Fashion Week, and a 2nd year marketing student at the University of the West Indies.
3: Many on social media commented on Davina’s natural hairstyle. She sports a 70’s style Afro, which only happened after her grandmother passed. “It has become my greatest asset. I’m just gonna keep growing it,” she recently told the Caribbean National Weekly while adding that she is trying to “empower other females to embrace their natural hair.”
4: As she revealed during her question and answer segment, she has adopted the mission to provide a platform for the deaf. Miss Bennett has been touring Jamaica promote the Davina Bennett Foundation for the Deaf to “bring awareness to the deaf by getting the exposure from the Miss Universe Pageant. She currently coaches Jamaica’s first deaf model, Britney Barnes, who was her inspiration behind starting a foundation to help the deaf “who need the opportunity, or someone, to stand up for them.”
5: The Miss Universe second-runner up was born in Mitchell Town, Clarendon, and attended Clarendon College where she said she learned a lot of “core values and morals.”
6: Her message to everyone: “Tell everybody to embrace themselves. Just be confident, know you’re worthy, you’re beautiful and you’re good enough.”
7: The Jamaican beauty who stunned in a bright yellow evening gown and looked poised and beautiful throughout has had her share to trials. Two months into her university studies, she was diagnosed with a ruptured ovarian cyst and had to undergo surgery. This was just the first of many stumbling blocks she had to overcome.
And on March 3, 2017, Bennett’s was robbed at gunpoint. “When I was held at gunpoint and robbed, I really thought my life was going to be taken. I was on the ground, they had guns over my head and everything was taken from me. When I came out of it, I was down and depressed for a few weeks, but I remember thinking that if I lived, there must be a purpose for me. It can’t be that I came out of this and did nothing with the adversity that I had overcome,” she shared with the Jamaica Gleaner after her Miss Jamaica Universe win.
8: She has decided to develop a sign language app that would help her to communicate with the deaf. The app idea fueled a fire in Bennett as it also brought her to a tablet initiative that allows low-income schools to have access to technology.
9: Though she looks confident, the Miss Universe runner up has admitted in the past that she was afraid of public speaking and being on a stage and was an introvert.
10: Miss Jamaica Universe also says her faith has helped her overcome a lot including nervousness. “I believe it’s God. On the day, my mom, who knows I get nervous in front of a large crowd, prayed and made her church pray to take away my nerves. I didn’t get nervous until it was time to answer the question, and though people were saying I executed it confidently, the mic was shaking and I felt as if my voice was shaking. I’m happy I was able to pull it together and execute as planned,” she told Flair immediately after her Miss Jamaica pageant win.
