After an extensive public campaign and a weekend of challenges, Jordan Bruno was announced as Mr Gay Pride Australia 2018 on stage at Melbourne’s Midsumma Festival on Sunday.
More than 30 men from around Australia applied to be Australia’s representative at Mr Gay World 2018 and from that seven finalists battled it out for three weeks to grab the Australian public and the judges’ attention.
Jordan is from Perth Western Australia and has worked extremely hard to campaign for the title alongside his LGBT community activities.
On stage at Midsumma Carnival Jordan was overwhelmed with the victory.
“I want to thank everyone for coming out today and being a part of this amazing community it’s a real honour to represent this community,” Jordan said as he accepted the sash from Mr Gay Pride Australia 2017 David Francis.
“I’ve had so much support and there is so much inspiration here, everywhere you look there are inspirational people that have done so much and I hope that I can leave a fraction of the legacy that these guys have.”
The 2018 competition which is sponsored by Eikon, Gay Sydney Australia, InterContinental Melbourne The Rialto, StartOut, The Boy Project and Xcrew ActiveWear, has, for the first time, been held both online and offline with the public online vote concluding just before the winner was announced on stage at Midsumma Carnival on Sunday.
As part of the competition, Jordan along with his six other finalists competed in a photo shoot challenge, a written test, a personal interview, a public vote online, wrote an opinion piece that was published online and a public speaking challenge at Midsumma Carnival
Jordan was crowned Mr Gay Pride Australia 2018 ahead of Nicholas Steepe from Dubbo NSW in second place and Daniel Megson from Annadale NSW in third.
Speaking off stage, Jordan reflected on the moment and how excited he was to have a platform for the issues he has been talking about for so long.
“The issue I’m definitely most passionate about is mental health in our youth sector, there are so many kids in so many difficult situations and a whole array of problems and hopefully we can work with them one on one and give them individual attention and we can solve so many issues,” Jordan explained to one of our judges Takaya Honda off stage at Midsumma Carnival.
“One of the highlights [of the Mr Gay Pride Australia competition] is meeting all these amazing men, they’ve all got an incredible social mission, everything is different and it gives you an idea of how far we have to go in our community.”
Jordan now goes on to represent Australia at Mr Gay World 2018 in Knysna South Africa in May and will be involved in many other projects across the country as the year moves forward.
Last Updated on Jan 18, 2018
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