Although social networks are a source of opportunities, they often end up becoming a weapon to launch criticism from anonymity. Athenea Pérez is the representative of the Region of Murcia in the Miss Universe Spain 2023 pageant and has suffered this negative part firsthand.
She herself has been in charge of publicly denouncing that she is going through a bad time due to the attacks and racist criticism on Twitter for her skin color. The young woman from Murcia has gone to The Ana Rosa Program to vindicate her work and her origin.
Although the 27-year-old model tries to enjoy the happy professional moment she's going through, she can't help but be affected by the negative comments about her. "They do not understand why I represent my region, Murcia, if I do not have supposed Murcian features that they believe a representative should have," Athenea Pérez began to recount.
Given this statement, Ana Rosa Quintana wondered what were those traits that people ask for. Something that Pérez is clear about: "I suppose it is basically having light skin, being white." However, the model claims that she is from Murcia, like her father and her grandparents.
In any case, she has not wanted to hide her origins from her mother, of which she is very proud. "This demonstrates the ignorance of the haters, who could stop to read that my mother is from Equatorial Guinea, that until 40 years ago she was Spanish," said Athenea Pérez.
But it seems that the racist attacks he has received have been suffering all his life. Although she assures that she has not had any problems with the people who know her, she cannot say the same about some that she has crossed on the street and who have made "strange gestures" at her. "I belong to the first or second generation of Spanish racialized people, now we live freely and for that very reason I was surprised to see these attacks," she has sentenced.
Athenea Pérez was born in 1996 and at an early age she was already elected Miss Universe Murcia in 2013. "I accompanied a friend to a Monroe Models agency contest and I introduced myself with her so that she would not go alone, and who was going to tell me that I was going to end up winning it and entering this firm", explained his beginnings in the world of modeling on the La Verdad portal.
Of course, he knew from the beginning that he did not want to stop studying. Having to work as a model in different countries around the world did not prevent her from graduating in Advertising and Marketing in Madrid. "It was clear to me that she did not want to leave her studies in the middle," she assured in the same medium.
