peter
My modelling career started when I was nineteen. At the time, I was living in Italy with my father while I was going to university. One day, I was in Milan when I got scouted by two modelling agencies. I was so excited about the opportunity that I ended up signing with one, took a break from university, and moved to Milan full-time. For the next four years, I was going back and forth between Milan and the University. I loved living there! I made a lot of friends and although I experienced a lot of blunt racism in Italy, at the time, I hadn’t really thought about it a lot. That was until an incident happened that really stayed with me. I remember hanging out with my friends in a crowded restaurant in Milan and there was a man standing behind me. I think I may have bothered him by standing with my back too close to him. But, before I could even recognise his presence, he decided to burn his cigarette through my dress! He then looked me in the eyes and said the ’N’ word…
Although my 19-year-old self recognised that it wasn’t fair of him to do and say that, I remember trying to figure out what I did that was so awful that it provoked him to treat me that way. Over time though, while similar incidents pile up, you begin to desensitised yourself from these encounters. You stop trying to deal with them and you stop overthinking them. You began to accept that, well, this is just how it is when you look different. By the time I won Miss Universe Ireland as the first black Irish, I was so grateful for the overwhelming support from the people of Ireland that I was somewhat prepared for the few racist comments on social media. Because I had a more important mission in front of me. From my experience in modelling and working as a datanaut for NASA, I want to become a role model for girls who can identify with me. I wanted to show them that if I can get there, they can do it too.