Miss Universe just made a huge rule change. Now all women 18 and over can compete in the beauty pageant.
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- Miss Universe R'Bonney Gabriel announced that the pageant has made a huge change to its age limits.
- All women 18 and over will now be eligible to compete at Miss Universe and its associated pageants.
- Previously, only women from the ages of 18 to 28 could compete at Miss Universe and Miss USA.
Another huge change is coming to the Miss Universe stage.
R'Bonney Gabriel, the current Miss Universe, said on Tuesday night that the international beauty pageant will now be open to all women aged 18 and over.
The Miss Universe pageant, as well as the Miss USA pageant, previously only permitted contestants between the ages of 18 and 28 to compete.
Gabriel announced the news during designer Tanner Fletcher's 2023 New York Fashion Week show titled "Beauty Pageant," according to Women's Wear Daily.
"What I love about Miss Universe is that they are always out first in line, looking for ways they can be more inclusive and better live up to the platform that they've designed for us," Gabriel told WWD.
"It's a bold group of women in charge over here, and you know what, a lot of people tend to follow what we do," she added. "It's nice to be a standard-bearer, and I'm proud that we get to do this."
Following Gabriel's announcement, the Miss Universe Organization released a statement on its Instagram story.
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"The Miss Universe Organization announces the elimination of all age limits across all Miss Universe and associated pageants," it read. "This change will apply for all 2024 pageants globally. Starting then, every adult woman in the world will be eligible to compete to be in Miss Universe."
While competing for Miss Universe in January, Gabriel said she hoped the Miss Universe Organization would change the age limit.
"I am 28 years old, and that is the oldest age to compete. And I think that's a beautiful thing," Gabriel, who won Miss USA in October, said during the top-five question round.
"My favorite quote is, 'If not now, then when?"' the former Miss Texas added. "Because as a woman, I believe age does not define us. It's not tomorrow. It's not yesterday. But it's now. The time is now that you can go after what you want."
Gabriel walked the runway at Fletcher's show alongside models who were selected to represent a wide span of ages, according to WWD.
"We are aligned on the belief that all people no matter the societal boxes they have been put into deserve to act as their authentic selves and be celebrated for it," Fletcher Kasell, the cofounder and creative director of Tanner Fletcher, told the site.
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Speculation began to swirl around Miss Universe's age requirements after the organization announced in August 2022 that it would begin allowing married women and mothers to compete.
The change took effect in 2023. Miss Maine Juliana Morehouse will make history as the first married woman to compete at Miss USA later this month.
"I've dreamed of getting married for a lot of my life, and I've dreamed of competing at Miss USA for a lot of my life," Morehouse told Insider in May. "I never thought doing the two at the same time would be possible."
Andrea Meza, who was crowned Miss Universe 2020, previously told Insider that the rule change was a long time coming.
"A few people are against these changes because they always wanted to see a single beautiful woman who is available for a relationship," she said. "They always wanted to see a woman that from the outside looks so perfect that she's almost unreachable. The former is sexist and the latter is unrealistic."
The Miss Universe Organization and Gabriel did not immediately respond to requests from Insider sent outside regular business hours.