Rejoice, redheads around the world! Despite everyone’s best efforts to deny the ginger side of life and keep redheads at the bottom of the social ladder (well, sort of), we’ve finally reached a new historic moment. Despite beauty pageants not really meaning anything anymore, we can officially say that for the first time ever, a redhead has been crowned Miss England. While this probably won’t do much against the constant bullying redheads have to endure, even a small step would be one in the right direction!
The new Miss England is named Jessica Gagen and despite the show’s long history (it’s been around for nearly a century), she is indeed the first redhead to win the crown and gain the opportunity to represent England at the Miss World elections.
The 26-year-old was born in Skelmersdale, between Liverpool and Manchester. Despite having beauty and brains in spades, she didn’t get to where she is right now without some struggles. She was bullied for being a redhead, like many kids in that situation, but the bullying was severely abusive in nature.
At the age of 18, she signed a modeling deal and this slowly restored her confidence.
She’s currently doing an integrated master’s degree in aerospace engineering, which should be ample proof of her brains. The beauty, well, you can see that for yourself.
She’s a very huge supporter of getting more girls into the so-called STEM subjects and empowering people with red hair.
She had entered the Miss England competition last year but stranded as the first runner-up. No matter what happened, she had to win this year – and she did!
She’s hoping her example can empower redhead kids and make them realize that despite the hardships you run into in the early part of your life, you can still achieve something amazing and the color of your hair doesn’t need to be something that holds you back from achieving your dreams.
It feels kind of weird that this is a message that still needs to be said in 2022 but here we are. Her message may not stop bullying as a whole, but it might help some kids that are having it rough make it through that situation and turn it into something that drives them to achieve greatness. Even if it only helps one kid, that’s better than not saying it at all, right?
