Asya Branch, as Miss Mississippi USA was awarded the opportunity to represent Mississippi at Miss USA 2020, became an American beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss USA 2020. She will represent the United States at the Miss Universe 2020 pageant.
Asya Branch was born on 5 May 1998 in Detroit, Michigan, to an African-American father and mother. She is the sixth child of eight siblings and grew up in Booneville, Mississippi.
Asya Branch In Miss Universe
Asya represented the USA for the Miss Universe competition on 16 May 2021 held at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. She competed against 89 other hopefuls in this year’s competition.
Branch made history in November of 2020 by being the first Mississippi representative to win Miss USA. She was also the first Black woman to be crowned Miss Mississippi USA in 2019.
“I was so honored to have made history, but at the same time, I thought, ‘Wow … we’re still having firsts,’” Branch told the newspaper.
Branch, who also represented Mississippi in the separate Miss USA pageant in 2018, has used the platform to talk about criminal justice reform. This issue is personal to her. Branch’s father served a 10-year prison sentence that forced him to be away from his family while Branch was growing up.
“It’s really an honor to be able to set this example for young girls to know that they don’t have to look like the person that came before them in order to accomplish their goal,” she said.
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Asya got crowned by her predecessor, Miss USA 2019, Chelsie Kryst. Behind her, Miss Idaho USA Kim Layne became the first-runner up while Miss Oklahoma USA Mariah Jane Davis got crowned as the second-runner up.
Asya Branch Family, & Height
The pageants competing with other hopeful winners are required to choose a platform with which they will cause to bring awareness to and volunteer for to help her community. As for Asya Branch, she had chosen to be a blood donor.
Then once during one of her beauty pageants competition, Asya, said one of the judges, looking up from her paperwork, “it says here that you rfather is incarcerated. Can you tell us more about that?”
That’s when her past with her father flashed in her mind. When Asya was 10, her father took in a friend’s troubled son, as well as a family struggling financially. She said that her father would always be there while she would go to school and waiting for her when she got home.
But one day, she recalled, back to the day when she came home from school, and her dad wasn’t waiting on the porch. Instead, her house was surrounded by strange cars – government vehicles, when she was almost at the age of 11.
Later she learned that the boy who lived with her family had robbed a woman, where no one was hurt, but there were drugs involved. Her daddy, as the believer of God who followed a saying of “whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone – especially to those in the family of faith,” had tried to help him undo the crime and paid a heavy price.
After her dad was convicted, the government seized his property which led her mother, siblings, and her to sell anything possible in their possession and move out of their farmhouse. So after her family couldn’t afford any extras anymore, she eventually picked herself for pageants.
And as her paperwork asked, “How has the world you come from shaped your dreams and aspiration?,” she wrote about her daddy’s incarceration, which in a way, her whole family was serving a sentence. Then when she was asked about it, she explained it to her judges, which made her do as her father would “help anyone when you have the opportunity.”
Asya is 23-year-old standing at the height of 165 cm or 5 ft 5 in. She has a large family where she is the sixth child out of eight siblings. Her father was retired from the military, and her mother worked as a teacher’s assistant. She has been a nanny for a special needs child. In 2003, she and her family shifted from Michigan to Booneville in Mississippi.
Asya has disclosed that she has strived every day to set an ideal example to her brothers and sisters, whether they are younger or older, as she has believed that anybody can be a role model regardless of age and have positive impacts on the lives of others. She represented Mississippi in the Miss America 2019 pageant, where she was unplaced, but she became the 2nd runner-up in the Quality of Life awards of the contest.
Is Asya Branch Dating Anyone?
Asya Branch is reportedly said to date Briley Morgan since 2016. Briley is a musician, and he is very supportive of Asya and all of her accomplishments.
Asya Branch and her boyfriend, Briley Morgan (©: Instagram/Asya Branch)
According to a report, in 2018, Branch won the title of ‘Most Beautiful 2018’, and her boyfriend Briley also attended the event. He stated to have known each other since middle school and have been dating for two years. At that time, Morgan said, “I knew she was going to win. I’m super excited for her to compete for Miss Mississippi – she’s turned me into a pageant boyfriend.”