Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Tya Jané Ramey placed in the top 16 at the 71st Miss Uni­verse Pageant last night, which was won by Miss USA R’Bon­ney Gabriel.

Ramey was among the five Caribbean del­e­gates who made it that far in the com­pe­ti­tion—Miss Puer­to Ri­co Ash­ley Cari­no; Miss Haiti Mide­line Phe­li­zor; Miss Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic An­dreina Mar­tinez; and Miss Cu­raçao Gabriela Dos San­tos.

How­ev­er, it was R’Bon­ney Gabriel, a fash­ion de­sign­er, mod­el and sewing in­struc­tor from Texas who com­pe­ti­tion of­fi­cials said is the first Fil­ipino Amer­i­can to win Miss USA, who even­tu­al­ly was crowned Miss Uni­verse on Sat­ur­day night, at the Mo­r­i­al Con­ven­tion Cen­ter in New Or­leans, Louisiana.

Miss Trinidad and Tobago Tya Jané Ramey takes part in the evening gown competition during the final round of the 71st Miss Universe Beauty Pageant in New Orleans, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Gabriel closed her eyes and clasped hands with run­ner-up Miss Venezuela, Aman­da Du­damel, at the mo­ment of the dra­mat­ic re­veal of the win­ner, then beamed af­ter her name was an­nounced.

Thump­ing mu­sic rang out, and she was hand­ed a bou­quet of flow­ers, draped in the win­ner’s sash and crowned with a tiara on­stage at the 71st Miss Uni­verse Com­pe­ti­tion, held in New Or­leans.

The sec­ond run­ner-up was Miss Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, An­dreina Mar­tinez.

In the Q&A at the last stage of the com­pe­ti­tion for the three fi­nal­ists, Gabriel was asked how she would work to demon­strate Miss Uni­verse is “an em­pow­er­ing and pro­gres­sive or­ga­ni­za­tion” if she were to win.

“I would use it to be a trans­for­ma­tion­al leader,” she re­spond­ed, cit­ing her work us­ing re­cy­cled ma­te­ri­als in her fash­ion de­sign and teach­ing sewing to sur­vivors of hu­man traf­fick­ing and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

“It is so im­por­tant to in­vest in oth­ers, in­vest in our com­mu­ni­ty and use your unique tal­ent to make a dif­fer­ence,” Gabriel con­tin­ued. “We all have some­thing spe­cial, and when we plant those seeds to oth­er peo­ple in our life, we trans­form them, and we use that as a ve­hi­cle for change.”

Miss USA R'Bonney Gabriel walks on stage after being crowned Miss Universe during the final round of the 71st Miss Universe pageant, in New Orleans on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Ac­cord­ing to Miss Uni­verse, Gabriel is a for­mer high school vol­ley­ball play­er and grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Texas. A short bio post­ed on the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s web­site said she is al­so CEO of her own sus­tain­able cloth­ing line.

Near­ly 90 con­tes­tants from around the world took part in the com­pe­ti­tion, or­ga­niz­ers said, in­volv­ing “per­son­al state­ments, in depth in­ter­views and var­i­ous cat­e­gories in­clud­ing evening gown & swimwear.”

Miss Cu­ra­cao, Gabriela Dos San­tos, and Miss Puer­to Ri­co, Ash­ley Cari­no, round­ed out the top five fi­nal­ists.

Last year’s win­ner was Har­naaz Sand­hu of In­dia. —NEW OR­LEANS (AP)