L&rsquo;Officiel asks filmmaker Samantha Lee to sit down with Michelle Dee for a one-on-one on queer identity, what she wants to be remembered as, and how she uses the transformative power of self-expression to build an impactful legacy.

PHOTOGRAPHY Karl King Agu&ntilde;a
STYLING Loris Pe&ntilde;a
It&rsquo;s been a year since Miss Universe Philippines for Michelle Dee, with her wrapping up her reign at the 2024 coronation night recently. It&rsquo;s also been a year since photos of her surfaced online that compelled her to share her gender identity with the rest of the world, coincidentally, after her own coronation&mdash;the timing, almost deliberate. However, for Michelle, it was a chance to tell her story and an opportunity to empower even just one queer person who ever gets to hear it. There&rsquo;s a conversation to be had here, so L&rsquo;Officiel asks Michelle to chat with someone who is no stranger to queer storytelling herself, filmmaker Samantha Lee.

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So when are we going to work together?
Whenever you need me, I&rsquo;m there. You&rsquo;re the one who hasn&rsquo;t been needing me.
Okay, so it&rsquo;s the real first question. I feel like in many ways, this conversation has long been overdue. We&rsquo;ve known each other for a while, but we&rsquo;ve never really talked about this, like queerness and identity, which I feel, I mean, we&rsquo;ve talked about some parts of it.&nbsp;
We&rsquo;ve only really talked about wanting to work together on queer projects. Yes. The willingness to be part of it. Yeah, yeah. Surface level everything.
I was really excited to have this conversation with you. Because aside from your reign, it&rsquo;s also been a year since you&rsquo;ve publicly come out.
Correct.
Can you talk about the year that you&rsquo;ve had and how much has changed or how much hasn&rsquo;t really changed since you did that?
Just to take things back, of course, I came out to take control over my narrative. Because, you know, when you win Miss Universe Philippines, inevitably people will be against the result and they&rsquo;ll try to take your story away from you. I have to reiterate that I don&rsquo;t believe you should feel pressured to come out. But if somebody is trying to take away your story, then it&rsquo;s really up to you if you want to set the record straight, if you want to take control over that narrative and take that opportunity to empower anybody that might resonate with that.
When my story came out, of course, there was an overflowing positive response towards it. Nobody really had anything bad to say. There were a few comments here and there, but I don&rsquo;t really care about bashers. I don&rsquo;t care about what anyone says. For me, as long as I can positively affect one soul, then that&rsquo;s it. That&rsquo;s enough for me.
My whole theme this year was really embracing who I am and what I have to offer the world. A big part of that was how I identify myself. I was able to connect on a deeper level with a lot of my supporters.
A lot of my supporters have also come forward to me and said that it&rsquo;s because of my story that their parents started accepting them. They started accepting who they are also, and they were able to actually maximize their potential without the fear of being judged.
So a lot of opportunities have come my way, a lot of blessings. But ultimately, I&rsquo;m just so happy that I was able to, you know, do what I set out to do, which has become a good example.

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&ldquo;I know the most important parts of my story.&rdquo;

Speaking of leaning into your authenticity, I want to ask if you still find yourself reverting back to moments of self-censorship in the last year? Like, oh I can&rsquo;t say that. I can&rsquo;t act this way, totally forgetting that you&rsquo;ve already come out?
No, I mean, regarding my sexuality, no, definitely not. Like, I have always been very free-spirited. I think what was holding me back was publicly acknowledging or identifying myself. Because after coming out... I think my fashion didn&rsquo;t change, my perspective didn&rsquo;t change. I was still pretty sure about who I was. I don&rsquo;t think anything could actually, I guess, sway me otherwise, in terms of how I see myself.
But, you know, again, I have to quote the showbiz industry that you do have to censor the things that you give other people. The opportunity to give their opinion. So, there are things in my life that you have to keep to yourself. You have to protect. I love my fans, I love my supporters. But there is that fine line of allowing them to cross over that personal boundary. There are things that they can know, there are things that they don&rsquo;t know. And that&rsquo;s okay. Because I know the most important parts of my story.
Let&rsquo;s talk about fashion and how much that plays into identity&mdash;I&rsquo;ve seen photos of you when you were young floating around online. You dressed a lot differently back then. Can you talk about how your fashion has changed as you&rsquo;ve grown and found yourself over the years? Like did you hate wearing dresses when you were a kid and now it&rsquo;s a big part of your job?
I guess just because it wasn&rsquo;t my personality I mean I grew up on a ranch, and when I moved here, it wasn&rsquo;t ever forced upon me to start dressing a certain way. I was given the freedom to explore my own fashion sense. I guess I didn&rsquo;t just have a fashion sense back then. I said before that my only crime was my sense of fashion and I still believe that to this day.
What I do appreciate about the fact that I did come out is that despite how, I guess, conservative the Philippines is given that we&rsquo;re a predominantly Catholic country, the brands that I work, with the management that I work with, the friends that I have&mdash;they have wholeheartedly embraced that aspect about me. Like this cover, it screams MMD. It screams my style and even the brands that came before this they&rsquo;ve been embracing who I am, and really just not trying to make me conform to the mold that I tried so hard to get out of, so I do love the fact that there is mutual respect and acceptance towards that.

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The reason why I do what I do is that I personally was really hungry for representation especially in local media. Growing up, there was no one for me to look up to. Growing up, was there anyone you looked up to, any icons?
My mom. Because I do believe it was because of her that I started having such an open mindset from such a young age. I am who I am because of her. I was able to explore my own individuality. I have best friends within the LGBT community, I have never shied away from my own individuality. I was vocal about my support even before I came out. I would attend pride marches. BJ [Pascual] is somebody I idolize a lot, also of course you, Sam Lee, I can&rsquo;t wait to work with you, and just so many key players in the industry that I do look up to. But yeah, that all starts from the upbringing at home and the willingness to live life with that kind of perspective that you should not judge people based on their sexuality but based on what they do on the day-to-day and what they do with their platform and their influence.
What makes someone an icon?
I honestly believe that to define what is iconic means creating something timeless. Creating a legacy that is yours alone, that no one can replicate you, but also the fact that everybody will try to replicate it. It's about being that trendsetter, being that first mover means you took a risk. It means, one way or another, you tried to break the rules and then it was only then that people realized that this is actually either a necessary change or a change that&rsquo;s been waiting to happen. Once you&rsquo;re able to successfully do that, only then will you only know if you&rsquo;re iconic or not.
So I feel like we&rsquo;re so lucky to be living in an era where we get to rewrite or defy all these conventions around these jobs and titles, right? Like a queer female director. Or an out bisexual beauty queen? How do you stay true to yourself while balancing all the responsibilities of these different labels?
It starts with honesty. I had to be honest about how I identify myself. I wasn&rsquo;t trying to please anyone. Nobody told me to come out. Nobody told me how to identify myself. I think what&rsquo;s wrong is if you identify yourself as something else or if I were to identify myself as lesbian to attract only the lesbian community. When in fact, I have had relationships with both men and women. The balance comes from being honest that I am bisexual and this is who I am. In fact, I am a beauty queen. It makes it easier for me to handle my day-to-day because I know I&rsquo;m not hiding behind a fake facade.

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&ldquo;For all the baby gays out there, don&rsquo;t be scared of who you are. Don&rsquo;t be scared of how you identify yourself. Just know that if you believe you&rsquo;re a good person, you will be a good person.&rdquo;

So in fact, they don&rsquo;t contradict but they actually complement each other.
Yeah.
So thanks to the things that you&rsquo;ve accomplished, you&rsquo;re an icon to a lot of young queer kids. Do you think about this weight that you carry?
I know that there is that pressure to lead by example. But again, like everything that I do, I&rsquo;ve had such great role models in my life. My grandmother was dedicated all of her life to helping other people. There's my mom who taught me the value of giving back. My father wouldn&rsquo;t even think twice to help somebody. Those are values that have been instilled into me.
So it&rsquo;s very innate to me to be conscious about how I act. This isn&rsquo;t about hiding my sexuality or making sure that they only see a certain aspect of me. In my heart, I know that everything I do, I can be accountable for. Everything that I do and everything that I show the world is something that I can be proud of. And because I have those very strong values, I know that whatever I do, I can be a good example. I can set and lead by example not just within my reign, not just a year after. That&rsquo;s something that I&rsquo;ve been actively trying to do all my life.
For all the baby gays out there, don&rsquo;t be scared of who you are. Don&rsquo;t be scared of how you identify yourself. Just know that if you believe you&rsquo;re a good person, you will be a good person.
To wrap everything up, you&rsquo;ve defined what an icon is for you, you&rsquo;ve talked about the weight of being an icon for younger kids. But for you personally, you&rsquo;ve also spoken about legacy. What kind of icon do you want to be remembered for?
I really want to be remembered as somebody who reached her success. The potential of success. Because this is just the start. This is only the beginning. I have so much more to accomplish. But that success happened because I was unapologetically authentic. I have failed multiple times in the past but being authentic and embracing myself was the key to my success. And then you include my values. You include everything that has happened in my life. To get me to where I am now, it wasn&rsquo;t easy to get here. It wasn&rsquo;t easy to subject myself to so much scrutiny. But because I embraced what I had to offer the universe, I went from being the most bashed to one of the most loved and accepted queens.

Can you tell us what you and Tiffany &amp; Co. have in common?
I have so much gratitude for Tiffany &amp; Co. I mean this is kind of like a young girl&rsquo;s dream to be working with a brand that you&rsquo;ve idolized, somehow look up to growing up. Sure you have Audrey Hepburn, you have just a lot of of references, you admire the brand but they&rsquo;ve been such a huge help in terms of supporting who I&nbsp;am, my identity, what I represent, and to be wearing Tiffany for this specific cover actually goes so much deeper than just wearing it. Because for those that don&rsquo;t know Tiffany &amp; Co. actually stands for boldness, uniqueness, being disruptive, breaking boundaries, being optimistic, and those are all qualities that I believe I represent. The fact that those are what I stand for and what Tiffany stands for is aligned. I feel like that sends an even greater message especially now that this is coming out during pride so it sends a really positive message not just here in the Philippines but globally.
&bull;&bull;&bull;
Tiffany &amp; Co. has always been for the freedom in and power of self expression. June happens to be a milestone month for the legacy brand as well, with a new store opening in Solaire patterned after the iconic Tiffany &amp; Co. in The Landmark NYC. The famous blue box also happens to finally land in Cebu this month.

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CREATIVE DIRECTION Loris Pe&ntilde;a
PRODUCERS Loris Pe&ntilde;a and Knelle Rosario
MAKEUP Dave Qiambao
HAIR Nelly Seboy
PRODUCTION DESIGN Chila Zialcita of Artist and Co&nbsp;
VIDEO DIRECTOR Aijalonica Lei&nbsp;
PHOTO ASSISTANTS Rojan Maguyon, Jyllan Bitalac, Sherie Bolo&nbsp;
VIDEO ASSISTANT Dianne Bernardo&nbsp;
PRODUCTION DESIGN ASSISTANTS Abbey King Abad, Mary Anne Quiogue, Anthony Vasquez&nbsp;
STYLING ASSISTANT Teresita Gabat&nbsp;
SPECIAL THANKS TO Sparkle GMA Artist Center

The Making of an Icon: Michelle Dee

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