Natalie Glebova
Encyclopedia : N : NA : NAT : Natalie Glebova
Natalie Glebova, (born November 11, 1981 in Tuapse, Russia) is the Canadian winner of the 2005 Miss Universe pageant in Bangkok, Thailand on May 31 (Bangkok time). She works as a model and received her Bachelor of Commerce in Information Technology Management and Marketing at Ryerson University. She also has worked as a motivational speaker for grade school and high school students.
Glebova is also a classical pianist and has won various regional gymnastic championships. According to an interview, she was born in a small town by the Black Sea in Russia called Tuapse. "It was there that I lived for some of my childhood with my parents (I’m an only child). My family moved to Toronto when I was 12 years old, and I fell in love with the city from the minute I arrived!"
In her own words, Glebova also confessed that she was teased by her classmates while in school, due in part to her Russian accent. Thus, she hopes that her own immigrant story will help the other immigrants towards assimilation all around the world. [link]
At first it was difficult, just because I went to grade eight at the time, and as you can imagine, kids and teenagers can be cruel sometimes...I was one of the few kids in school with an accent and a different last name, so it was difficult for the first few years until I really perfected my language and started believing in myself more.
In 2004, Glebova attempted to win the Miss Universe Canada pageant where she placed as 3rd Runner-Up. The eventual winner, Venessa Fisher, failed to place in the Miss Universe 2004 finals.
In January 2005, she finally won on her second attempt at the national title.
Glebova is the second Canadian to win the Miss Universe competition. The first was Karen Baldwin in 1982. Interestingly, Glebova and Baldwin graduated from the same high school, London Central Secondary School.
Year in the life of Miss Universe
As Miss Universe, Glebova represented the Miss Universe Organization. Her "sister" 2005 titleholders are Allie LaForce (Miss Teen USA, of Ohio) and Chelsea Cooley (Miss USA, of North Carolina).Glebova was supposed to travel to Indonesia to crown Miss Indonesia Universe 2006 in late July, but because of Canada's travel ban to the Southeast Asian country, Glebova was officially replaced with Puerto Rico's Cynthia Olavarria, the First Runner-Up of Miss Universe 2005. Since the Miss Indonesia pageant's revival in 2000, this was the first time in which Miss Universe was unable to attend the coronation.
Within the year, Glebova is expected to visit her home country of Canada, Brazil, South Africa, Swaziland, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, India, China, Puerto Rico, St. Martin, Dominican Republic, Japan, Nicaragua, and Europe, including Ukraine, the Czech Republic, and her birth country of Russia.
During Glebova's official "homecoming" to her hometown of Toronto, the Miss Universe was formally offered an apology by the city's mayor David Miller after the titleholder was barred from attending the "Tastes of Thailand" festival while wearing her sash and tiara nor being introduced as a beauty titleholder. A 1990 bylaw, which prevents sexual stereotyping of either men or women in public events, was strictly enforced and largely criticized by Miller and Miss Universe organization president Paula Shugart. Shugart called the episode an "insult" to not only Glebova, but to the Thai government who named her an "honorary tourism ambassador". According to Shugart, this was the first time in Miss Universe's history that a titleholder was uninvited from a public event. [Yahoo! News] (The same bylaw was once invoked to bar Barenaked Ladies from a public concert at Nathan Phillips Square.)
Since coming home in mid-July, Glebova has felt a generally apathetic attitude and reaction towards her homecoming. Although she admitted pageants are not hugely popular in Canada's culture, she called a few negative press comments a bit disheartening.
As part of her year-long reign as Miss Universe, she currently resides in New York City in a riverside apartment provided by the Miss Universe Organization and assumes the role of HIV/AIDS awareness advocate. She has already attended the G8 Summit in New York City on August 11, 2005, the summit ended on August 15, as the summit reflects on ending Poverty in the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, to end gang activity, and to end drug cartels in Colombia.
In November, Natalie attended a special Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in Delhi and was on a week long tour of several Indian cities on an AIDS Awareness Program. In December, she attended the national pageants of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic before going back to Thailand to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the 2004 Tsunami tragedy.
Glebova crowned Alice Panikian as her national pageant successor the night of March 21 2006.
In late March 2006, Natalie visited Russia for the first time since leaving the country in her pre-teens. She participated in an HIV-AIDS Awareness campaign in Moscow and attended a Russian fashion show as a special guest.
Natalie will crown her successor on July 23rd, 2006 in Los Angeles, USA.
External links
- [Natalie Glebova profile at Miss Universe official website]
- [Missosology.Org: Analyzing Beauty Pageants]
- [Photos of Glebova in 2004]
- [CTV News report]
- [Video at Miss Universe]
|- style="text-align: center;" |- style="text-align: center;"
| Miss Universe Organization Titleholders 2005 | ||
| Miss Universe Natalie Glebova | Miss USA Chelsea Cooley | Miss Teen USA Allie LaForce |
| Big Four Pageants Titleholders 2005 | |||
| Miss Universe Natalie Glebova | Miss World Unnur Birna | Miss Earth Alexandra Braun | Miss International Precious Quigaman |
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.