Page 22 - South Mississippi Living - January, 2026

Meet Brittany Gill,
the Survivor-Turned-Advocate Behind the Sash
story by Cherie Ward photos courtesy of Brittany Gill
PEOPLE
There’s a reason the photos from the Miss Voluptuous International pageant look like a Hollywood drama. Spotlights. Nerves. A room full of glittering gowns and women trying not to let their hands shake.
And somewhere in that whirlwind—on a red carpet laid across a ballroom floor in England—Brittany Gill, representing the entire Southern United States, lay flat on her back with one shoe on and one shoe off.
Not defeated. Not dramatic. Grounded.
“I could feel the panic coming,” she said, laughing at the memory from last October. “Six judges. Four-minute rotations. I thought I was about to pass out, so I just lay down. That was the only way I was going to show up as my real self.”
She did more than show up. She won the entire international title. But that’s not the only crown Gill has earned. She earned one off stage long before that—in the dark places she survived, the daughters she’s raising, the women she’s helped heal, and the life she rebuilt from the inside out.
Gill’s story begins in LaPlace, Louisiana, where childhood peace vanished early. Her father—a hard-working business owner originally from India—was deported when she was just seven. Her mother, suddenly raising two children alone, sold their businesses, their home, and everything stable.
22 | January 2026
www.smliving.net | SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living
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