Pia Wurtzbach reflects: Miss Universe title ‘means very little without right people’

Amid the controversies surrounding the Miss Universe pageant, Pia Wurtzbach looked back at her journey as the 2015 titleholder and credited the people she was with for making her experience “powerful.”

Wurtzbach, who won when the Miss Universe Organization (MUO) was still headed by Paula Shugart, marked the 10th year anniversary of her crowning with a message on her Instagram page on Sunday, Dec. 21.

“Ten years. I’ve gone back and forth about posting this because revisiting Miss Universe forces me to sit with what it meant to me then and what it means now. And that requires honesty,” she said.

What I know for sure is this. My Miss Universe experience changed my life in real and lasting ways. Not just because of the crown, but because of the people who made that experience what it was,” she stated.

Wurtzbach underscored how they cared for her and guided her, and made her feel that she “mattered not just as a winner, but as a woman going through something transformative.”

“That is what made it powerful. A title on its own means very little without the right people behind it,” she noted.

“You can have a big production, amazing theatrics and a global stage. But the truest measure will always be the women who walk away saying, ‘That changed me. That gave me confidence. That opened doors. That made me believe in myself,'” she continued.