Chantelle Williams greeted us outside Luther’s Bar; we set up the interview just two days prior, but she said she’s perfectly happy to sit and chat with us at the student union, before heading to the local Greene King for some social media content.
Williams described herself as a “yes, man” and has worked with a “hell of a lot of Newcastle businesses” including Breadwin, Freight Island and Flight Club most recently.
She was scouted for Miss Newcastle, her first pageant, earlier this year and placed runner up. She heads to compete in the finals for Miss England, an annual beauty pageant which sends its winner to the Miss World pageant, on Tuesday at Athena in Leicester.
Williams said that she was initially on the fence about competing because she had never done so before but soon changed her mind and thought “why not?”
Now, she hopes to encourage a similar attitude for women in the North-East by appearing at Miss England.
She said that she hopes to show them that “it doesn’t matter your background” but “how much time effort and motivation you put in.”
Prior to the competition day, contestants in Miss England are encouraged to compete in a number of rounds, including the ‘bare faced round’, in which contestants post a photo online without makeup, and ‘explore the nation’, where contestants showcase their local area, amongst others.
Williams said that she entered as many rounds as possible as well as setting up some charity nights prior to Miss Newcastle and Miss England.
But Williams’ inexperience in the pageant world and jam-packed schedule may not be what surprises you the most about her.
She’s also an advocate for addiction awareness and works with families who have been affected by addiction in the North-East.
Williams spoke openly about her parents’ battles with addiction, particularly her father’s death, which motivated her to spread awareness on the topic.
She is particularly eager to utilise her platform to warn university students against drug use, with specific reference to the culture of casual drug use on nights out.
She is particularly eager to utilise her platform to warn university students against drug use, with specific reference to the culture of casual drug use on nights out. Although Williams herself did not attend university, she said that she “was out clubbing with a lot of friends who were uni students and so many people just offered me cocaine.”
She talks about people she has crossed paths with in the past ten years that have begun with “a little line” and have become addicted to “fully hard drugs.”
She said that she does, however, want people to know that help is available and recovery is possible.
She speaks proudly of her mother's recovery thanks to North Tyneside Recovery and uses it as a totem to motivate others in similar situations.
She said that “I want to get across to them that they can [recover]”, naming her work ‘Hope Beyond Addiction’ as an emblem of her ideology.
Even in her day-to-day life, Williams takes on an advocacy role; she casually tells us a story of her buying food for a homeless man and taking the time to sit with him after competing in the Miss Newcastle final.
She recalled talking with him over a kebab about his own battles with addiction, sharing her own experiences as a child of someone who struggled with addiction, in hopes of “moving them to do better.”
Williams said that she hopes to use the exposure from pageantry to “inspire people to also get into charity work” and educate those who aren’t familiar with addiction.
She said that to bring the title back to the North would be “amazing” and would bring an “even bigger platform” to the North-East's growing industry.
Williams said that her roots in Newcastle are “100% relevant” to her journey...
Williams said that her roots in Newcastle are “100% relevant” to her journey and applauded Mellisa Rae, the organiser of Miss Newcastle, for changing the challenging the beauty standard often seen in the world of pageants.
The Miss Newcastle pageant was brought back for the first time this year since 2019, with Rae telling MSN that she wanted to “challenge stereotypes” and celebrate “confidence, kindness, talent, advocacy and ambition.”
With thirty-eight finalists set to compete for the Miss England crown on Tuesday 17th November, Williams hopes her place in the competition will extend beyond the traditional realm of pageantry, highlighting how the platform can be used to give greater visibility to important conversations around issues of addiction and recovery.