Updated

Updated · AOL · Aug 2

Jaime VandenBerg Reveals She Competed at Miss Universe 2025 While 4 Months Pregnant

Updated

Updated · AOL · Aug 2

Jaime VandenBerg Reveals She Competed at Miss Universe 2025 While 4 Months Pregnant

Q: Despite rule changes allowing pregnant contestants, why did this beauty queen feel forced to hide her baby bump in 2025?

Jaime VandenBerg hid her pregnancy not because Miss Universe rules barred her, but because she believed the pageant culture and public attention would reduce her to a label. By 2025, Miss Universe had already changed its eligibility rules to allow pregnant women, mothers and married contestants. But VandenBerg said she still felt pressure to keep the pregnancy private so she would be judged for what had brought her there: years of preparation, her resilience, and her advocacy against gender-based violence after surviving a near-fatal shooting. She told PEOPLE she feared that if she disclosed the pregnancy, she would stop being seen as a serious competitor and become known mainly as “the pregnant contestant.” In her view, that risk extended beyond organizers to fellow contestants, media coverage and public perception. She also worried her philanthropy and platform would be overshadowed by the pregnancy itself. There was also a personal reason. She and her boyfriend, Aaron Hernandez, wanted to keep the early months intimate and experience them privately, even from family, at a time when much of her life was already highly public. Her account suggests that formal rule changes did not fully erase older beauty-pageant expectations around body image and identity. Even in a more inclusive era, she felt she had to hide her baby bump to retain control over how she was seen: not as a novelty, but as a prepared, capable contestant with a message beyond her pregnancy.

Q: What hidden wardrobe tricks allowed a Miss Universe contestant to conceal a four-month pregnancy from the world on live television?

Jaime VandenBerg concealed the pregnancy mainly through careful styling rather than any single dramatic trick. She said she “planned her wardrobe around her changing body” during the monthlong Miss Universe 2025 competition in Bangkok, choosing silhouettes that would not draw attention to her midsection as she entered her second trimester. The reporting does not detail every garment, but her own account makes clear that fit, structure and timing were central. As an experienced pageant competitor and model, she knew how stage clothing, tailoring, fabric and camera angles can shape what viewers perceive on live television. In practice, that likely meant selecting dresses and outfits that skimmed the body rather than clung tightly to the abdomen, and adjusting looks as her body changed through the event. Her ability to keep the pregnancy hidden was also helped by timing and circumstance. At about four months pregnant, many women show only subtly, and VandenBerg said she felt well for most of the competition and did not suffer visible symptoms such as morning sickness. She also had medical reassurance that her body was already conditioned for pageant demands. So the “hidden trick” was not a special prop or deception device. It was disciplined wardrobe planning, expert pageant presentation and the fact that her pregnancy was still early enough to be concealed under well-chosen competition outfits.

3 articles · Updated · AOL · Aug 2

Jaime VandenBerg said she was four months pregnant when she represented Canada at Miss Universe 2025 in Bangkok last November, disclosing it publicly in a March 2 Instagram Reel.
The 29-year-old kept the pregnancy secret from family, pageant organizers and fellow contestants because she wanted to be judged on her advocacy work and decade of pageant effort, not as "the pregnant contestant."
A physician cleared her to compete, and VandenBerg said she felt well through much of the month-long event, adjusting her wardrobe as her body changed during the second trimester.
Miss Universe had already changed its rules in 2023 to allow mothers and married women to compete, but VandenBerg said the private decision made the early pregnancy feel more intimate.
VandenBerg, who gave birth to daughter Charlotte on May 14 and has since retired from pageantry, said she hopes the experience shows women they can pursue ambition and motherhood together.