Raquel Pélissier (born August 21, 1991) is a

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

an model and beauty pageant titleholder who won Miss Haiti 2016. She represented

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( ; ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Haiti, most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2022 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The me ...

at the pageant and represented Haiti at

Miss Universe 2016 Miss Universe 2016 was the 65th Miss Universe pageant, held at the SM Mall of Asia Arena, in Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines on January 30, 2017. This was the second time that the pageant skipped a year, after Miss Universe 2014 was held i ...

where she ended as 1st Runner-Up, being the first Haitian delegate to place in the finals in 41 years, with their last placement being back in 1975.

Personal life

Pélissier was born in Haiti. At the age of three, Pélissier was in a 21-day coma, came out of it and was paralyzed for a week. She later survived the

2010 Haiti earthquake The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake that struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (departm ...

. Pélissier started doing photo shoots for local magazine ''Rebelle Haiti''. In

, held in

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

, she was runner-up to France's

Iris Mittenaere Iris Mittenaere ( ; ; born 25 January 1993) is a French television personality, model and beauty pageant titleholder best known for winning the title of Miss Universe 2016. The second Miss Universe from France after Christiane Martel, Mittenae ...

. Post-Miss Universe, Pélissier has done several pageant-related videos on her YouTube channel, which has almost 7,000 subscribers. Pélissier has a master's degree in Scientific Research from

Universidad Complutense The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...

in Madrid, Spain. She is fluent in English and Spanish, alongside her native tongues of French and

Haitian Creole Haitian Creole (; , ; , ), or simply Creole (), is a French-based creole languages, French-based creole language spoken by 10 to 12million people worldwide, and is one of the two official languages of Haiti (the other being French), where it ...

References

1991 births Living people People from Port-au-Prince Haitian beauty pageant winners Haitian female models Miss Universe 2016 contestants Complutense University of Madrid alumni {{Pageant-bio-stub