The Filipina-American beauty queen received warm support from the public on social media.
The pageant community rallied behind Miss Universe 2022 and Filipina-American model-host R’Bonney Gabriel Nola after she received criticism from incumbent Miss Universe CEO Raul Rocha.
Rocha, who said the statement online, compared the follower count of reigning queen Fatima Bosch with Nola.
“Just for your knowledge, Fatima (Bosch) has gained three million followers in just one week. Yet, our former American queen, R’Bonney, who won in 2022, has reached only around 800K followers in nearly five years,” he said.
This prompted R’Bonney, who hosted the preliminary events and served as a commentator of the recent 74th edition, to upload a short video on TikTok.
She wrote in her caption, “I’m so tired of being measured by follower count.”
Soon after that, the clip went viral, with the pageant community instantly launching a mass following movement for R’Bonney’s account to express support to the Filipina-American beauty queen.
And within hours, her follower count on Instagram jumped from more than 874,000 to more than 1 million. At present, it now stands at 1.1 million.
In a post on Thursday, November 27, R’Bonney expressed her gratefulness to the fans that helped her reached the milestone.
“In less than 24 hours, yall got me to 1 MILLION followers! It was never about the numbers, but people have looked down on me just because of my social media follower count,” she wrote.
She continued, “Thank yall so much for supporting me. Maraming salamat sa suporta. Your support is so strong and so real.”
Staying true to her advocacy, the occasional co-host of Eat Bulaga added, “This gives me a bigger platform to share my passion for design. To use fashion as a force for good. It was always about advocating for the arts, making women feel beautful in my designs, and sustainability through my brand [rbonneynola_design].”
Furthetemore, she reminded everyone: “It feels crazy to celebrate this, but I’m happy 😊 let’s not forget there’s still a whole world out there beyond digital platforms. Human connection and impact is still what’s most important ❤️“
Lastly, she emphasized: “No hate comments here, please.“