It’s taken 67 years, but when 90 beauty pageant hopefuls strut their stuff across the stage for the Miss Universe competition this Sunday, December 8th, they will be joined by the pageant’s first openly gay contestant—and it’s about time.
The pageant world isn’t especially known for its inclusivity. Contestants have historically been overwhelmingly thin, white and model tall. But times are changing. Last year Miss Universe had their first openly trans contestant and this year, for the first time ever, Miss America, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA are all black women.
By being the first out gay woman in Miss Universe’s history, Miss Myanmar Swe Zin Htet is helping to write the next chapter in pageant representation. She’s also leaving a lasting and hopefully change-inducing mark in her own country, where same sex relationships are illegal. “A majority of people in Myanmar are not accepting of this,” Zin Htet says of her sexuality. “But my goal is to make them look at me and others that are like me just the same.”
According to the Myanmar Times, members of the LGBTQ+ community can still be prosecuted for being who they are and loving who they love. They are verbally teased and beaten, and being gay is, “punishable with a lengthy stint in prison.”
That’s what makes Zin Htet’s bravery so impressive. “LGBTQ people in Myanmar do not have equal rights and I want to change that,” she says of her decision to come out despite knowing it could create a backlash in the country she calls home. “I feel like if I am open about my sexuality others will open up, too.”
By choosing to come out on such a public stage, she is opening the door for increased inclusivity—while also putting herself at risk. Of course, coming out so publicly wasn’t easy. “This decision was a little bit difficult for me because I’m shy,” she said, recognizing that coming out would increase the public’s interest in her private life.
Locals allegedly don’t have to worry about greeting Markle or Prince Harry in any specific way. “It’s very much how they want things done,” the source continues to VF. “There is no protocol that says you have to bow or curtsy when you meet them; it’s really up to the individual.”
Why the couple is approaching their tour like this is unclear. Some sources say it’s to get their popularity back on track after a few weeks of bad press. (Markle and Prince Harry garnered criticism in August for chartering a private jet on holiday despite their environmental activism. Harry later addressed the controversy, saying he mostly flies commercial but sometimes has to make exceptions—and he always offsets his CO2 in those cases.)
Regardless, Markle and Prince Harry’s move to be more informal in southern Africa is confusing some officials. “I have no idea how to speak to them,” Jacky Poking, secretary of the Bo-Kaap Civic and Ratepayers Association, said to South Africa’s Sunday Times. “We haven’t received any official brief on etiquette. I think that’s because the Sussexes want to keep it informal. I don’t even know how to greet them.”
If these reports hold water, I have a feeling Meghan and Harry don’t really care how anyone greets them. I think Poking can rest easy.
When it comes to her style, Meghan Markle has a habit of breaking with royal traditions. Even as a duchess, she loves her dark nail polish, collarbone-bearing bateau necklines, and pantsuits—precedents be damned. Naturally, the media goes bananas every time she seems to go against “protocol,” whether it’s with her outfits or with her email schedule. Inside the palace, though, the narrative is totally different.
“You read all the time about Meghan breaking protocol by wearing dark nail polish, Meghan breaking protocol by wearing an off-the-shoulder dress, breaking protocol by wearing black or by not wearing tights. She’s not breaking royal protocol. There is no book of royal etiquette,” royals expert Katie Nicholl tells Glamour. “She’s just doing things differently. I don’t think that is causing huge problems at the palace—if Meghan steps out wearing dark nail polish, I don’t think it’s upsetting anyone.”
According to Nicholl, there was one instance when Markle’s wardrobe may have ruffled Kensington Palace’s feathers. And it had more to about what she didn’t wear.
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“I think possibly eyebrows were raised when she didn’t wear a hat on her first official engagement with the queen, and I do think that was a mistake,” she says. “But I think, other than that, people get their knickers in a twist unnecessarily so.”
Markle’s lack of headwear did spark some headlines at the time. According to the Daily Mail, royal aides actually informed the duchess that the queen was planning to wear a green hat in honor of those who died in the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire—which meant, more or less, that she should’ve followed suit. “I don’t think the duchess fully understood,” a senior figure close to the queen told biographer Robert Jobson for his 2018 book Charles at Seventy: Thoughts, Hopes and Dreams. “This was not a request. They are for others to make, not the queen.”
That being said, Nicholl also tells us the queen and Markle have a great relationship, so any of this “hat drama” from last summer is obviously squashed.
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“She likes Meghan,” Nicholl says. “She’s very impressed with her work ethic. I’m told she was surprised and impressed Meghan carried out that tour of Morocco when she was so heavily pregnant. The queen is arguably the hardest-working member in the royal family, and I think she likes what she sees in Meghan.”
It’s like clockwork: You spy—or, almost as bad, can feel—the beginnings of a zit. The next thing you know, you’re applying layer after layer of your go-to acne treatment and scrubbing it to death. But is that really doing the trick, or could you actually be making your acne worse? You probably know where this is going. Read on for the biggest mistakes we’re all making when it comes to getting rid of a breakout—and tips on how to fix them.
Mistake #1: Applying a spot treatment every time.
Reaching for the spot treatment is, at this point, a natural reaction to a breakout. But it might not doing as much for your skin as you may think. “Your face has thousands of pipes connecting your oil glands to the surface of your skin,” says Joshua Zeichner, M.D., director of cosmetic and clinical research in dermatology at Mt. Sinai Hospital in NYC. So it’s tough to tell which will get clogged enough to result in a pimple. Sure, it’ll help diminish the zit of the week, but it won’t prevent a new one from popping up right beside it. Instead, check Mistake #2.
Mistake #2: Using acne products only when you have a breakout.
If you know you’re breakout-prone—or you have telltale zits at the same time every month—calling on anti-acne products as needed is like chasing your tail. “Instead of treating pimples as they appear, it’s more effective to use a gentle product that contains salicylic acid every day,” explains NYC dermatologist Whitney Bowe, M.D. “This helps prevent breakouts on a regular basis.” Bonus: Salicylic acid is an anti-inflammatory ingredient, so it’ll also minimize irritation. Try a daytime lotion infused with it, like OleHenriksen Counter Balance Oil Control Hydrator.
Mistake #3: Scrubbing away your breakouts.
It can be tempting to try and strip off your top layer of skin in the hopes that your zits will go with it (spoken from personal experience). “Acne is to a great degree inflammatory, so if you’re not gentle, you’ll only create more inflammation,” says celebrity facialist Tracie Martyn. Ditch anything abrasive, including physical scrubs, and try an exfoliator that does the trick with gentle fruit acids, like Kate Somerville ExfoliKate Cleanser Daily Foaming Wash.
Mistake #4: Using the highest concentration of benzoyl peroxide you can find.
You might have heard that benzoyl peroxide (an antibacterical ingredient that targets acne- and inflammation-causing bacteria) is great for treating whiteheads. That’s true. But more doesn’t always equal better. “Even at low levels, benzoyl peroxide kills acne-causing bacteria and opens pores,” says Zeichner. In fact, studies show that high amounts of benzoyl peroxide (the most available is 10 percent) are more irritating but no more effective than their lower-concentrated counterparts. Paula’s Choice Clear Regular Strength Daily Skin Clearing Treatment balances a low 2.5 percent benzoyl peroxide with soothing bisabolol and allantoin. Translation: It’ll zap blemishes without drying out the skin around them.
Mistake #5: Picking
Popping zits used to be a capital-D Don’t, because picking at your skin can lead to bacterial infection and scarring, notes Bowe. But now, most derms agree that as long as you use a clean extraction tool, it’s OK. Look for one with a lance to delicately pierce whiteheads (like Sephora Collection 3-in-1 Extractor) and then center the metal loop over blackheads—and gently press down—to remove them. Just note that deep acne, however, still needs to be treated by a derm.
Mistake #6: Believing every skin care hack you see on Instagram.
Chatter about Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton’s supposed feud has reached a fever pitch. Just yesterday we debunked a report from the New Zealand Herald that alleged Middleton and Markle didn’t “really get on.” Well, it was actually the Daily Mail that did the debunking with its report claiming there’s no drama between the two duchesses. Richard Palmer, a royals reporter, later corroborated this, tweeting that Markle and Prince Harry’s imminent move to Windsor wasn’t inspired by a “big fallout” between her and Middleton—as speculated—but rather the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s looking to spread their wings.
But the drama isn’t over. New rumors are bubbling up that add fuel to the “Kate and Meghan don’t get along” fire. It’s a frustrating, confusing narrative, so we’re breaking down the new reports that are raising eyebrows. Take them all with a grain of salt.
Kate Middleton “in tears.” This comes from a story by The Daily Telegraph‘s Camilla Tominey, who was told by two sources that “Kate was left in tears following a bridesmaids dress fitting for Princess Charlotte” leading up to Markle’s May wedding. However, TDG never says why Middleton cried—just that she was “emotional” and had “just given birth to Prince Louis.” So it’s possible something or someone else besides Markle was responsible for these tears, if they even happened.
It’s the brothers who actually aren’t getting along. In one fell swoop, this report squashes any inclination that Markle and Middleton aren’t friendly and puts the focus solely on Prince William and Prince Harry. Katie Nicholl from Vanity Fair has this scoop. “Kate and Meghan are very different people and they don’t have a lot in common, but they have made an effort to get along,” a source tells VF. “Any issues are between the brothers.” Nicholl reports that the two brothers are “moving in different directions” and that Prince Harry wants to begin new royal duties with Markle that are separate from his brother and Middleton. “He wants to be his own person not in William’s shadow,” says a source. “The countryside works for him and Meghan because they want to raise their son or daughter away from the limelight.”
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Meghan-related tensions between the brother reportedly date back to last December, according to Vanity Fair, when Prince Harry thought Prince William wasn’t being as welcoming to his then fiancée as he could’ve been. “Harry felt William wasn’t rolling out the red carpet for Meghan and told him so,” a source tells VF. “They had a bit of a fallout, which was only resolved when Charles stepped in and asked William to make an effort. That’s when the Cambridges invited the Sussexes to spend Christmas with them.”
Read my body language. There’s a report from the Daily and Sunday Express breaking down all the ways the body language of Markle and Middleton are hinting at their strained relationship. An expert named Judi James says the physical space between Markle and Middleton at Wimbledon (see below) could suggest “distance” between them. However, James essentially refutes this by saying that Wimbledon marked Middleton and Markle’s first display of “open closeness and friendship.” So…what the hell is even going on?
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The answer to that is most likely “nothing.” The rumors suggesting tension between Markle and Middleton are either vague as hell or have perfectly logical rebuttals. This all appears to be smoke and mirrors for the boring truth: that Middleton and Markle are your standard sisters-in-law. They may not be best friends, but there’s no huge feud at play. Also, Markle and Prince Harry are probably moving because they want a bigger backyard. There’s nothing to see here, except four pretty royals.
Rita Moreno has a name for that voice inside her head that—even at 86, even as one of fifteen EGOTs, even as the woman who brought us such iconic characters as Anita in West Side Story and Lydia on Netflix’s One Day at a Time—tells her she’s not good enough: “I call her Rosita.”
“Certain parts of you, your fears and your love, never really die,” she says. “There are parts of me that are very young that live—the girl who was always sure that nobody liked her and that she wasn’t pretty enough. She’s the one who, still to this day, says things like, ‘Haha, I told you you couldn’t do it.'”
There was a time that Rosita overpowered Rita—a conflict that drove her to a suicide attempt in her youth, which she details in her 2013 memoir. She’s also caused moments of doubt, like when Moreno found herself out of work for years after winning an Oscar (an Oscar!) because every role sent her way played on a Latinx or brown stereotype she had no interest in perpetuating.
“The difference between then and now is that I tell [Rosita]: Go to your room!” (Therapy also helps, she says.)
PHOTO: Alamy Stock Photo
Moreno took home an Oscar for 1961’s ‘West Side Story’.
Moreno admits that “there are still times when I weep copious tears, when I feel I’ve been hurt by somebody or something.” It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it catches her by surprise. “I’ve been playing this role of a brave, secure woman for so long that I forgot I’m not really this—I know I’m brave, but I don’t know about secure.”
It’s hard to imagine Moreno not feeling secure. She’s dominated almost every medium: film, television, theater, even audiobooks. She’s the girl who left Juncos, her hometown in eastern Puerto Rico, with her mother at the age of five for New York City in the late 1930s (when she was still Rosita Dolores Alverio) and, over the next few decades, broke new ground for Latinx performers. She became la pionera, the pioneer.
But consider what happened after her most lauded achievement, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story in 1962. For nearly a decade, she didn’t have any significant acting credits, mainly because all the scripts sent her way were, as she’s described, “minor movies with gangs” and “Spanish spitfire[s]… [or] dusky maiden[s].” She held out for something better.
“It isn’t like I wasn’t very hurt,” Moreno says of this time. “I was so heartbroken when I got nothing but offers to do stuff like that again, on a lesser scale. It took me years to get over ese rechazo [rejection], it was just horrible. It broke my heart. But, Rita with a broken heart is still a person who keeps moving.”
And at times, Moreno had to accept those roles she scoffs at just to get by. “I do a lot of seminars with young people and a lot often ask me, ‘Well, why didn’t you just quit?’ I say to them, That means I don’t make any money, I can’t pay the rent…,” she says. “You stick to what you absolutely must do with the hope things will change. I did make a choice, but it was, I felt at the time, the only choice I could make. I didn’t do it for a noble cause—I would love to say it was noble, but I don’t think I was. I was a creature of my time.”
Still, perseverancia. Perseverance. That’s her motto, and it’s another word to describe her career. She persevered to get better roles. She persevered to quiet Rosita. And she persevered to feel like she had a place in Hollywood.
PHOTO: Shutterstock
PHOTO: Getty Images
PHOTO: Getty Images
For a long time, she thought the role that made her feel represented in her industry was Anita in West Side Story. Looking back, though, “there were things that were in that film that were not happy.” Now, the honor goes to Carnal Knowledge, from 1971. “For some wonderful reason, I played a woman of no particular nationality,” Moreno says. “That’s the only film I did where I played someone of no particular [background].” That, to her, is incredibly significant; it represents a moment she felt she was cast as Rita Moreno, actress, as opposed to Rita Moreno, Puerto Rican actress.
Those who have followed in her footsteps picked up on that difference. Rosie Perez highlights Carnal Knowledge as one of Moreno’s most noteworthy roles because it “had nothing to do her being Latin, [and] everything to do with her being a human being.” It’s indicative of her greater sacrifice, too. “[Moreno] broke down doors by not working for so long, by standing for her beliefs and morals and integrity and saying, I’m not just this one thing,” Perez says. “She paid a heavy price for us.”
Even now, Moreno thinks about what kind of scripts will come her way—especially since she currently stars as a Cuban grandmother on One Day at a Time. “I’ll be interested to see what else I get offered now and then,” she says. “Is it only going to be Latina from now on, because of Lydia? I would really not be happy about that.” It’s not that she doesn’t want to play Latinx roles. Rather, she wants the capital-i Industry, the people in charge, to understand that actors “should be able to play anybody” regardless of their background.
Moreno is proud of her identity, but it wasn’t always so clear. “For many, many years, I hated being Latina,” she says. “I was ashamed of it. I got bullied and treated very badly for a good part of my life [because of it]. That stayed with me for a very long time. It’s what drove me into therapy, eventually.”
Looking back, “I always believed that if I just simply persevered, that some day, somehow, some way, someone would say, ‘This person has talent and I’m going to help her,'” she says. “I come from a time [when] there were no mentors, certainly not for somebody like me. A Latina girl from Puerto Rico? There was nobody around. But you just have to pick yourself up, slap yourself on the face—figuratively and literally, if necessary—and understand that life is just not easy.”
“I made a decision when I was a little girl, when I couldn’t speak English and I was thrown into school: You can sink or you can swim,” Moreno continues. “I chose to swim. It’s part of my nature. I’m a very stubborn woman.”
PHOTO: Austin Hargrave
Moreno has dominated almost every medium—film, television, theater, even audiobooks—making her one of 15 EGOTs.
Stubbornness, perseverance…and a willingness to share her story to remind everyone: This is how I got here. It’s why “icon” feels like a word that just begins to scratch the surface of who Rita Moreno is.
But if you ask Perez what makes Moreno an icon, she’ll tell you, first and foremost, it’s her work. “It’s excellent. You could watch her over and over again, and you’re always wondering what her character is thinking,” Perez says. But it’s more than that; it’s how, throughout a long and often difficult career, Moreno has maintained her dignity. “She’s always walked in the room with her head held heigh and demanded respect in a quiet and classy way. That’s iconic.”
As for Moreno, she’s happy with the title. “I think it’s a fine thing to be an icon,” she says. “To the group of people who haven’t had much attention from anyone, who have had to struggle for an identity, I think it’s terrific. I do not reject that in any way.”
Rita Moreno stars in One Day at a Time, available to stream on Netflix. This profile is part of a full week honoring iconic women. For more, head here.
Photos: Art by Aimee Sy, Getty Images, Austin Hargrave.
