Queens In Zines, They Grew Until They Were The Most Beautiful Dutch Girl (part 2)

Story Magazine 19
april 19 1995

This is an article about beauty queens from the Netherlands and how they looked like when they were just a child. Second is..

Paulien Huizinga, the most beautiful woman of the Netherlands 1991:
‘It’s logical that your relationship breaks down because of such a title’

“As a child I lived in a world of my own,” says Paulien Huizinga (23).
“I even imagined that I had my own little gnome and I spoke to him every day.” The youngest of two children, I was a late child. Nevertheless, little Paulien regularly went for medical check-ups … in the kitchen cupboards. One time it nearly turned fatal when little Paulien, while visiting acquaintances, swallowed an entire jar of tablets. The stomach pump saved her life. A life that still had quite a few surprises in store for her, including the finals of the Dutch Miss Universe election in 1991.

Instead of leading a normal student life as a pupil at MTS fashion and clothing, from that New Year’s Eve onward she suddenly found herself living among the big stars of Hilversum, Aalsmeer and Amsterdam, and later she had a career as a presenter of the program Showtime. In the beginning everything was still new; “I was amazed when I suddenly found myself face to face with Robert ten Brink or Sonja Barend. Now I’m used to that, but it did take some time.”

“From one day to the next, a lot is expected of you. You grow up quickly. And I did experience that as a disadvantage. Suddenly you have to give speeches, even though you’ve never done that before. The nice thing is that you do things you would otherwise never do, like presenting. You learn very quickly from your mistakes.
But nowadays I’m always on my guard: do people come up to me because of my title and the work I do, or are they genuinely interested in who Paulien Huizinga is? Friends are very important to me. But if people put you on a pedestal, things go wrong. On the street I don’t look at people anymore. It irritates me when you see people whispering. I don’t even notice it anymore; I just look past them.”

About the impact a Miss title has on your relationship, Paulien is very clear:
“It’s very logical that for a guy it suddenly becomes difficult, like being an extra wheel on the wagon. Suddenly you get all the attention and he is labeled as the boyfriend of… That can cause problems. But all in all, I would do everything exactly the same as I did. Both the negative and the positive.”