When Emilia Dobreva was crowned Miss Universe UAE in October in a private closed-door audition, her initial euphoria turned into worry. The 27-year-old had to take the tough decision to leave behind her six-month-old twins and two-year-old son to travel to Mexico for three weeks and represent the UAE at the international pageant. But it was her biggest dream – a break she had waited more than 20 years for.
“It was the toughest decision for me,” she said in an exclusive interview with Khaleej Times after a homecoming dinner at a restaurant in Downtown Dubai on Wednesday.
“This is something I have wanted for a very long time, and I was on the cusp of making it a reality. However, leaving my children behind was extremely hard. I am very very lucky to have the support of my husband, my mother and my grandmother who took care of my babies while I was away.”
For three weeks, the ballet teacher pulled off 10-to-12-hour days in Mexico representing the UAE for the very first time at the Miss Universe pageant.
“We had to wake up at 4am every day,” she said. “Breakfast was served at 6.30am and it was compulsory to have it. There would be media all around, so our clothes and makeup had to be on point at that time of the day.”
Throughout the day, the contestants were trained and prepped on how to carry themselves and how to address a stage, among other things. “It was rigorous, hard work, but I learnt so much during my three weeks there,” she said. “Those are lessons I will always carry with me.”
The hardest thing was finding time to sleep, she said. “When it was night in Mexico, it was morning in Dubai,” she said. “I would be on video calls with my children most of the night. My twins were too young to understand but my son missed me a lot. I have a special suction on my phone which I used to stick to the mirror while I did my makeup so that I could keep in touch with my family.”
A dream two decades in the making
It was in 2003, at the age six, when Emilia first participated in a pageant. “It was called Little Miss Universe, and it was a talent-based pageant,” she recalled. “I was really young, but I enjoyed every moment of it. I loved the glitz, the glamour, and the dressing up.”
A trained ballet dancer, she spent several years performing stage shows after that. “I enjoyed being on the stage and having the spotlight on me,” she said. “But inside me, there was always that dream of participating in the real Miss Universe pageant. I wanted to represent the UAE at the pageant but at the time, it was not even a remote possibility.”
