She found fame as a Miss South Africa finalist – then hit the headlines again after revealing her genetic condition. We meet the star of an extraordinary documentary about life outside male-female categories
It takes mere seconds to warm to Sharon-Rose Khumalo. The former beauty queen waves away my apology for having a croaky Covid voice. “That makes two of us! I have strep throat from all the travelling” she says. It’s her smile that sets her apart from the other impossibly beautiful finalists in footage from Miss South Africa in 2016; while they pout and pose, Khumalo stands there with a friendly beam.
It felt important to be herself in front of the cameras at Miss South Africa. “To be authentic. You’re basically in the beauty Olympics. It’s very easy to fall into this trap of being prim and proper. But I wanted to do it on my own terms.” For instance, she says, she left her hair natural and un-straightened: “I competed in my own hair. I needed to show me. Even if I didn’t win, that was a risk I was willing to take.”
