Twenty-four-year-old aspiring attorney Tahje Bennett was crowned by Miss Jamaica World at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel on Friday night. Bennett replaces the 2022 queen Shanique Singh, the islands second-longest reigning Miss Jamaica World.
This is Bennett’s second time entering the Miss Jamaica World pageant, having first entered in 2022.
Twenty-one-year-old aspiring actuary Jamila McGowan was named first runner-up and Shanelle Kellyman, a 25-year-old creative in the event and marketing industry, was second runner-up.
Bennett also won the Beauty with a Purpose fast-track competition and the Multimedia sectional award for her initiative geared towards empowering women and young girls, particularly those who have experienced gender-based violence, Kellyman, winner of the Talent Fast-Track, was named Most Poised.
Other sectional awardees included Lianne Fullwood, Most Congenial; Nikayla Davis, Best Personality and Shanae Brown, Best Smile.
In the lead-up to the competition, Chris-Shann Grant took top honors for the Fitness Challenge; Aliah Clark, Top Model Challenge and Brown, the Swimwear Competition.
Bennett will represent Jamaica at the 72nd Miss World Festival in early 2025.
The reigning Miss World is the Czech Republic’s Krystyna Pyszková.
As of 2019, Jamaica has the distinction of having four beauty queens that have gone on to win Miss World crowns. Jamaican contestants that are Miss World title holders are Carole Joan Crawford in 1963, who was also the first woman of color to win the competition; Cynthia Jean Cameron Breakspeare (Cindy Breakspeare) in 1976; Lisa Hanna in 1993; and Toni-Ann Singh in 2019. Toni-Ann Singh was the longest reigning Miss World in the pageant’s history, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
