Aside from the 3 B’s (Basketball, Boxing & Beauty Pageants), Filipinos love “melodrama” – the standard rags to riches, the “David and Goliath” and everyone’s favourite, the “Cinderella” story.
Before I begin my story today, you have to watch this to fully understand our heroine, Hipon Girl.
Because now, this is what she looks like…
Before you react violently or otherwise, let’s first look at the facts. Her name is Herlene Nicole Budol (yes, like the modus operandi of yore). She’s 23 years old and is, according to Wikipedia, a comedienne and an actress. She got into the Pinoy consciousness in 2019 when Wowowin game show host, Willie Revillame discovered her when she joined one of the show’s segments – “Willie of Fortune.” And because she’s funny and candid she became one of the show’s regular co-hosts.
Her talent and charisma got her other jobs appearing in other tv shows including her life story on GMA’s “Magpakailanman” which topped the ratings charts beating ABS CBN’s “Maalaala mo Kaya.” She later on followed the trend of becoming a viral sensation with videos and snippets of her performances on her youtube channel which now has 1.88 Million subscribers.
However, there was still a life-long dream that she wanted to achieve – and that’s becoming a beauty queen. And in true “beuconera” fashion, she traversed the Metro in search for that one crown that she could win. After years of losing pageants, she bagged the crown “Binibining Angono” in 2017 to the surprise of her detractors. She didn’t only win the crown, she also gained a monicker – “Hipon Girl” (having a beautiful body but a less desirable face) coming from all the other beauty camps who lost that night. And because she is funny, she used that name until she became a viral sensation.
So here’s the sitch, kibitzers and the local chismosas got a new dish when Herlene announced that she will join Binibining Pilipinas – the iconic Philippine pageant known throughout the world. Little did they know that this will be the launch of Hipon Girl’s “other” persona, Nicole with a few very interesting enhancements – it's like throwing raw meat into the lion’s den. Social media ate it all up and Hipon Girl is trending once more.
Supported by her following – the Hiponatics, her Ka-Budols and her Ka-Squammys (colloquial term for informal settlers), Herlene (now Nicole) entered into the final selection of candidates for several international crowns and her target, the Miss Grand International crown and people are just full of social media content about that.
As a lover of interesting stories, I celebrate her unwavering spirit. She cries at times to show her appreciation and awe at her good fortune and she never stops to overthink about the bashers and naysayers. And with 400K followers on IG and a million more on Youtube plus a lot more possibilities after her pageant competition, she could just probably shrug off those comments and lie in a bed of hard-earned money.
As a pageant fan, I’m curious how this will all pan out. There are a million and one questions that I am sure are going through every pageant aficionado wanting to have their country well represented. Pageant queens do have some rags to riches stories like Dayanara Torres who had to walk to school in her worn-out shoes before she became an international superstar. But how would it be when advocating for causes and standing up for something she believes in an academic forum? She’s probably doing her best to master her pasarella and her daily fit checks. But how will she deal with international issues concerning war, famine and discrimination. Well, I honestly had my doubts in the beginning but times are changing and she is rewriting pageant history as she goes deeper into the competition.
It’s interesting though that she chose the MGI crown to target – the pageant being known to have some over-the-top candidates in the past years. And as expected, the pageant owner already has some things to say according to speculators (or analysts, I guess).
Will Herlene Nicole Budol get to ride on that welcome home caravan with an international crown? Her story has yet to unfold at this point. So, let’s keep a close watch on this site.
What do you think? Are you a ka-squammy? A hiponatic? Or ka-budol? How far do you think will she go in this pageant venture?
Write to us and let’s chat about it. ;)
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Photos from Nicole's instagram page.