Miss England’s first ginger champ cries as she reveals cruel bullying… and the star she looked up to
SITTING on a silver throne at the Miss England pageant on Monday, Jessica Gagen wept tears of joy as the coveted crown was placed on her head.
As the first redhead to win, the Lancashire lass, 27, has plenty to be proud of.
Growing up her copper-coloured locks made her a target for cruel schoolroom taunts - which left her locking herself in the toilet to avoid her tormentors.
She was called names, spat on and even burned by bullies over the colour of her hair - now she wants to use her Miss England platform to spread a positive message to fellow sufferers.
She told The Sun: “When I started secondary school I was picked on for my hair colour and it used to grind me down.
“I used to feel really bad about myself.
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“But towards the end of high school, I flourished. I got good grades, I had a group of friends, I was assistant head girl.
“My whole journey around Miss England was because I wanted to bring this to light.
“There are kids going through the same things and I want them to know that it doesn’t last for ever.
“There’s light at the end of the tunnel.”
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Thirty women from across the country took part in this year’s two-day Miss England event in Birmingham, going through several rounds and culminating in the crowning of Jessica by outgoing queen Rehema Muthamia.
The contestants raised more than £32,000 using the Beauty with a Purpose charity platform, which runs alongside major beauty pageants including Miss World and allows entrants to pick causes close to their hearts.
For her part, Jess raised £6,000 for local charities by running 5k in fancy dress every day for 96 days.
Jessica will represent England at the 71st Miss World in the Spring of 2023.
But being crowned Miss England is not what it’s about for Jessica.
She says: “A lot of people think it’s about winning a crown and it’s not, it’s about getting your message out there.
“I won a few different prizes, including a diamond necklace and trips to the Maldives and India.
“But for me the main prize is that I’m going to represent England at Miss World, which is crazy, and it also opens up a lot of different other opportunities.”
A bright and sporty student, Jessica, from Skelmersdale, Lancs, was happy in primary school but things changed when she moved up to secondary.
She said: “I was punched, spat at and had things thrown at my head.
At the start of year 7, a girl was curling my hair and she kept resting the tongs on my head, burning me.
“The next day another girl told me she had been burning me on purpose. I remember thinking ‘Oh my God, why would she do that?’
“There were other incidents which really battered my confidence.
“There was name-calling, like ‘carrot top’, but mostly it was people mentioning my hair colour in relation to everything I did.
All I wanted was a group of friends around me. I used to cry when I came home.
Jessica Gagen
So if I did well in an exam they’d say, ‘It’s because you’re ginger’. What did my hair colour have to do with anything?
“The way I dealt with it was by bottling everything up. I tried my best not to react because I was mature enough to know that a lot of the kids weren’t being malicious.
“It’s a passing comment to them but when you get it day in and day out, it builds up.”
At times, Jessica felt so isolated she hid in the loos during her lunch break.
She explains: “There were a few occasions when I didn’t want to be around people and I’d eat my packed lunch in the toilet.
“I always loved learning and still do but I dreaded the out-of-class time and hated drama class, because we were always told to go into groups with our friends and I didn’t have any.
“All I wanted was a group of friends around me. I used to cry when I came home.
“It was very lonely because you’re going through a lot of changes at the age of 12 and 13 and I would look at myself and think, ‘Why do I look like this? Why was it me?’
“There was nobody who had ginger hair on TV, other than Prince Harry,” she says.
“So I used to love seeing what Nicola Roberts from the pop group Girls Aloud, because she’s successful, she’s got ginger hair and she’s from the North West, so she was like me.”
At times, Jessica considered dying her hair but stopped herself because she felt she would be bowing to peer pressure.
She explains: “I don’t have a problem with it myself. It’s just other people. My hair’s my identity. I never want to change it.”
Somehow, during her two years of torment, Jess found an inner strength that helped her cope with the jibes.
She says: “I decided I’d been given this set of genes because the universe thought I was strong enough to deal with it.
“Any backlash that I’m getting for it, I’m just gonna have to roll with it.
“My advice to anyone going through the same, especially in this social media age, is to find people who are very much like you.
“When I was feeling down, I used to follow accounts of girls who had red hair and suddenly my page was filled with people who looked like me.
“Then I didn’t feel as bad about my hair colour any more.”
She went on to bag nine A*s and an A in her GCSEs and formed a group of close friends.
On leaving, she defied her bullies by landing lucrative modelling contracts which took her all over the world.
It’s about using the platform in a positive way to spread your message.
Jessica Gagen
A whizz at maths and science, Jessica is now studying for a masters degree in aerospace engineering at Liverpool University as well as encouraging young girls to study STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths).
Jess says: “I want show them how great STEM subjects can be because, it’s still very male dominated, especially in engineering.”
Now she is proud to add the Miss England title to her long list of accomplishments, and says she hopes to change the traditional perception of beauty pageants as sexist displays.
She says: “It was surreal hearing them announce me as winner and I was very emotional.
“People have a lot of misconceptions about beauty pageants, an archaic view of what they involve.
“I’m hoping to change that and inspire others.
“If you get involved, you soon realise all of the girls have their own story, their own mission and their own reasons for being there.
“They’re all raising awareness about something close to their heart.
“It’s about using the platform in a positive way to spread your message.”
Since she was crowned Miss Lancashire in August, she has been contacted by hundreds of redheads who have suffered at the hands of bullies, and others who tell her they now realise their jokes about a friend’s ginger locks may have upset them.
Jess is an articulate, bubbly girl with an optimistic view of life, and she is keen to emphasise that happy endings are possible — and she certainly has hers.
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“When I was going through a dark time, I would think ‘I’ve still got three years of school left’ but actually there were many happy times after the first two years.” she says.
“So for anyone going through a similar thing, I’d like to say that the bad chapter doesn’t last until the end of the book - so keep reading.”
