Alyssa Boston: It was an amazing 10 days in Atlanta. My roommate was Miss Israel. She was amazing, we had a really good time.

You caused a media frenzy with your national costume; a shimmery, glittery, beautiful cannabis leaf. Tell me more about that. 

Canada doesn’t have a set national costume, so we had to think of something that I wanted to do. We’ve had a Canadian maple tree, a snow angel and a hockey player. When we were deciding on the costume, we wanted it to be more than just 30 seconds on stage — we wanted it to be the whole movement behind it. It’s a huge representation of what’s going on right now in Canada. I thought it was perfect to shine a light on it at Miss Universe.

No one in the history of Miss Universe has ever done anything that controversial. One day, six of us girls were sitting at the dinner table at Miss Universe, all talking about my costume — it was the talk of the town! Everyone had an opinion on it. Miss Columbia loved it. Miss Uruguay was jealous she didn’t think of it first.

Alyssa Boston onstage during Miss Universe. PHOTO | Miss Universe Organization

I bet!

Miss Indonesia was like, ‘Don’t come near me with that costume!’ Because her country would not be OK with it. It’s kind of cool to have that conversation.

Definitely. That’s funny, though. Miss Uruguay…

She was so mad.

Did the people of Canada support it?

For sure the cannabis industry was very supportive of it. We thought the public would be 50/50 about it. But, actually, we saw about 95 percent of people supported it. I had a lot of positive comments, a lot of people thanked me for touching base on it. More people are accepting of cannabis now and were very happy that I was using my voice to spread the message about ending the stigma that surrounds it

How did you come to working with designer Neftali Espinoza?

Neftali is pretty well known in the pageant industry; he’s actually made Canada’s costume for Miss Universe for a couple of years. He does Miss Nicaragua, too. My director is also a good friend of his. The design changed a couple of times, as we wanted to work together with my team and the designer to create something we all liked. I thought it was a good finished product.

You focused your Miss Universe campaign on ending stigmas including mental illness and cannabis. Why is it important that you use your platform to highlight difficult conversations? 

I think it’s important to talk about these issues and use my platform for these conversations — especially since Miss Universe is such a high-profile, international pageant. I’ve been competing in pageants for seven years and during that time, I’ve learned what I’m passionate about.

My uncle suffers from schizophrenia, so ever since I was a kid, I’ve been surrounded by mental illness. I always thought it was important to talk about it — especially with social media being so prominent today.

Alyssa Boston repping Canada and cannabis. PHOTO | Miss Universe Organization

You started the #TalkAboutMe movement on social media to spark discussion around mental health. Can you tell me a little more about that?

When I hang out with my uncle in public, a lot of people are really rude to him because they don’t understand that he suffers from mental illness. I don’t think people are understanding and they are not open to accepting that. If someone had a physical disability, they’d be more lenient to help them. But a mental disability is not as apparent to some people and they don’t treat them properly.

It sparked my interested in creating a movement about just talking about what’s going on in your life, especially using social media. Lots of celebrities use hashtags in their movements that open people’s eyes. Competing in Miss Universe means I could reach a greater scale of people to talk about mental illness. With the #TalkAboutMe hashtag, a lot of people have been like messaging me, telling me about their experiences with mental illness and how they want to talk to somebody about it. I wanted to shine a light on the fact it’s OK to not be OK — and that it’s OK to talk about what’s going on here in your life. That is definitely a rising issue that I wanted to use my platform to talk about.

Speaking of celebrities… Some of the biggest celebrity stoners are Canadian; Tommy Chong, Seth Rogen and the Trailer Park Boys. Have any of them reached out to you about cannabis?

I haven’t talked to any of them. But I’m going to an event at a cannabis company in a month and Tommy Chong is going to be there. So I’ll definitely get to meet him there and hopefully, we can talk about some cannabis. David Spade mentioned the costume on his talk show. And Steve Harvey liked it when we were at Miss Universe and he saw my costume.

Alyssa Boston, Miss Canada 2019. PHOTO | Supplied

You recently toured Aphria, Canada’s largest grow facility. How did it happen? Did anything on the tour surprise you?

I want to learn a lot more about the largest cannabis firms operating here in Canada. A friend of mine knew somebody that worked there, so I talked to my team and pitched the idea to Aphria to do a video tour. So, the CEO took us on a tour. It was amazing. I couldn’t believe how many people worked there. And the smell when you walk in is so strong!

You hold a Bachelor of Commerce degree. Do you have any plans to launch your own line of cannabis?

I’m very interested in being an entrepreneur. I have a business background, so I’m very interested to learn more about how the cannabis industry went from being illegal to legal. I’m feeling out the industry right now but it’s definitely something I want to look into in the future. For now, I’m just doing as many events as possible, public speaking as much as I can. And hopefully, I meet the right people and create my own line.