18 November,2023 10:27 AM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Sushmita Sen was associated with the Miss Universe organisation owned by Donald Trump
Sushmita Sen took a break from acting after her film No Problem (2010) to take care of her second daughter Alisah, only to return to screens with the web series, Aarya in 2020. In 2010, Sushmita started the project, I Am She - Miss Universe India, to choose girls to send to the international beauty pageant.
Talking about how she came about taking on the Miss Universe franchise in India, Sushmita told Mid-day's Mayank Shekhar, "I do have bills to pay and I am a single mom, so, we did have Renee Jewellers, which is a jewellery brand we have all over the Middle East, we are in Dubai, Bahrain, Doha, Kuwait, so we were looking into that, and meanwhile I was doing some endorsements and the Miss Universe Organisation called me and said would you like to take the franchise?"
"I was like what? Really? Like that's a dream. It's a payback of sorts. So, I said, yeah, what does it entail? Because I had never had direct relationships with vendors before. I was the star, everybody does everything around me. I don't even have anyone's number. So, I got grounded and I realized how to deal with people, because I signed a pretty intense contract when I took on this franchise. And it was owned at that point by Donald Trump, which didn't make it easy or fun," she said.
So, was Donald Trump her boss? "No⦠Luckily the only people who were my boss were Paramount Communication and Madisson Square Garden because they owned Miss Universe when I was an employee of Miss Universe for a year. As a franchise owner for Donald Trump."
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Did she ever meet him? "Yeah, because we had an association in terms of⦠doesn't matterâ¦" Sushmita tries to dismiss the topic.
"There are some people that leave an impression and not because of their achievements necessarily or their sense of power. It's just the people that they are that you take from them - inspiration or something - that helps you move forward. He is not one of them," she added.
"I took over the franchise in 2010. I called it I Am She and we trained 30 women in the first year and then 25 and 25, so a lot of young women with great potential, and by 2012 I realized I loved the process of sending girls from India but I didn't like the people I was working with. So, I dropped the franchise in 2012."
