""I feel so powerful and proud of myself," she said of her journey from bullied teen to pageant queen. "My coming out story wasn't the easiest," she told the . Richardson's heartfelt accounting has impressed judges all the way up her climb on the pageant ladder. She endured ceaseless bullying while at school after she came out on TikTok following the pandemic, she shared. She was 15 at the time."
""I was getting lots of negative comments, things were being said behind my back and it knocked my confidence a lot," she told the Leicester Times. "In every class someone would mention it and it became so overwhelming." "It's almost like everything I did was wrong," she said after her win. "My very close friends and family were all very supportive. But for some reason those at school, my peers, just weren't in the same way that my family were. It was a struggle to accept myself while a lot of people weren't accepting me.""
Grace Richardson, a 20-year-old musical theatre student from Leicester, was crowned Miss England. She came out as a teenager on TikTok at 15 and experienced severe bullying and negative comments at school that damaged her confidence. Close friends and family provided strong support while many peers were not accepting. Richardson described feeling overwhelmed and that everything she did felt wrong during that period. She expressed pride and power after winning and said sharing her story and representing a part of the community in pageantry feels special. Richardson will compete for the Miss World title in 2026 and plans to bring an inspiring message to young people.
Read at LGBTQ Nation
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