Hannah Golding is the current Young Miss International Lifetime Queen, being awarded her title for her incredible dedication to her title of YMI Spokesmodel which saw her become an author to “The Ultimate Pageant Handbook”, creating a podcast interviewing different queens about their mental health and undertaking over 1000 hours of community service within her time as a queen, as well as being a full-time mother to a 2-year-old daughter. Her platform within pageantry is Mental Health and breaking the stigma that surrounds it, which led her to create the Queen Chats Podcast and winning the Most Inspirational Beauty Queen at the Natural Beauty Awards early this year. She is also the founder of Sparkles and Rhinestones.
What are some major achievements or accolades that you’ve accumulated?
Throughout my time as a pageant queen, I feel I have celebrated some amazing milestones that have shaped me to be the international queen that I am today. I achieved my degree in Classical History whilst competing in pageantry alongside training to be a personal trainer, giving me a hard work ethic and dedicating the right time to achieve these dreams, which really helps being a parent. Winning Young European International Ms when I was 5 months pregnant also was a major achievement as it showed women everywhere that you can achieve your goals even when you have grown a new life, that you shouldn’t be written off at all! Also, it shows the diversity of pageantry and how much the pageant industry has grown since the beginning.
Another huge achievement would be creating, “The Ultimate Pageant Handbook”, which is a how-to guide to pageantry in the UK. It’s the first of it’s kind in the United Kingdom as any pageant book usually comes from the USA, so to have an in-depth book relatable to the UK Pageant Scene was a huge achievement! This stemmed from the amazing success of “Sparkles and Rhinestones” which is a UK pageantry-based site where we interview different queens, coach girls for their competition, and share lots of tips and advice for new pageant queens joining the scene which I founded in 2017.
I truly believe as a pageant queen you should be making a difference with your title and sharing your platform with the world. It was this reason that I started my Queen Chat podcast to show the other side of pageantry, that although we are glamorous and look the part of the beauty queen, there is a venerability, a real human who feels and can suffer from their mental health. With this podcast, we explore the different types of mental health and share our stories. Through my time as a pageant queen I have always been honest about my mental health which has inspired others to do the same, one great honor was being featured in a local girl’s coursework on being an inspiration because of my mental health journey, and this inspired her to stop self-harming. If you can help even just one person with your message, you are doing incredible things.
What are some projects that you are currently working on or promoting?
Currently, I am working on a project sharing the stories of pageant queens who have been affected by domestic violence as part of the UN 16 Days of activism against Gender-Based Violence. I have interviewed some incredible queens and can’t wait to share their stories through the Queen Chat podcast. I also have The Big Pageant Confidence Day which unfortunately due to COIVD has been postponed twice so fingers crossed third time lucky, which brings in guest speakers to help build up confidence, empower females and also educate. Lastly, I have also created the virtual Pageant Con which has a host of different pageant experts from the UK to share their expertise and advice, all raising funds for MIND UK, a mental health charity here in the UK.
Who do you have to credit for your success?
I would like to say I have myself to thank for a large part of my success due to my handwork and determination, but I also have an amazing support network to make all these pageant dreams become a reality. I have to credit my European Directors Jeyanne and Honora Wiltshire as well as my international director Sabrina Cadriel as well as my daughter Penelope for making me work ten times harder to be the best role model I can be.
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