YES! Huge round of applause to People magazine for picking the most deserving winner for this year’s Most Beautiful award, as Lupita Nyong’o snatches the crown after the whirlwind year to end all whirlwind years. You picked a clear winner, People. Well done!
“It was exciting and just a major, major compliment,” the 31-year-old says of gracing this year’s cover. And especially, “I was happy for all the girls who would see me on [it] and feel a little more seen.” Born in Mexico and raised in Kenya, Nyong’o first equated beauty with what she saw on television: “Light skin and long, flowing, straight hair,” she says. “Subconsciously you start to appreciate those things more than what you possess.” Her mother, Dorothy, who is the managing director and head of PR for the Africa Cancer Foundation, “always said I was beautiful,” Nyong’o adds. “And I finally believed her at some point.”
Seriously, nicely done. Lupita is stunning, chic, and she represents a large group of women that quite frankly don’t get a lot of representation in a society where lighter skin is favoured. Talented, hard-working, and effortlessly fashionable? Yes to all of the above. She is unstoppable.