{"id":402136,"date":"2026-08-09T23:08:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T23:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/402136\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T23:08:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T23:08:41","slug":"el-pasos-gia-solei-espinoza-says-pageants-helped-her-overcome-social-anxiety-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/402136\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso\u2019s Gia Solei Espinoza says pageants helped her overcome social anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"

EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 Fresh off being crowned 2026 Miss Earth USA, El Paso native Gia Solei Espinoza is preparing to take the national title to the international stage while continuing advocacy work at home, including an upcoming event honoring a friend she said was killed last year.<\/p>\n

Espinoza, who was born and raised in El Paso, said she is \u201cextremely proud\u201d to represent the United States \u2014 and to bring the title back to her hometown.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been competing for four years. I\u2019ve being competing in El Paso. I\u2019m with Bazaar Model Management. So they\u2019ve been training me and prepping me,\u201d Espinoza said. \u201cSo being able to bring this home to El Pasos truly an honor and to be able to not just represent the USA, but El Paso and the diversity and Mexico as well is honestly such an amazing opportunity.<\/p>\n

Espinoza said she started competing after graduating high school, describing it as a way to push herself beyond what she called \u201cextreme social anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can never be on a stage. I could not be doing this without being so scared of being judged all the time,\u201d she said. \u201cOnce I graduated high school, I realized I needed to start putting myself out there more because everything\u2019s about networking and opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

RECOMMENDED: El Paso duo Sam and Leo say debut single “Stay” on Friday<\/a><\/p>\n

She said she entered her first pageant with limited experience and saw early success, then continued competing and building skills through training and appearances. Espinoza also said she took part in a reality show last year, \u201cPretty Done Earth,\u201d with the Miss Earth USA class of 2025 top 11.<\/p>\n

Her next major competition will take her overseas. Espinoza said she will be leaving Oct. 24, 25 to represent the USA in the Philippines for three weeks, with official competition on Nov. 14, \u201cI believe.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the lead-up, she said she has been traveling and volunteering as part of her preparation, along with continued work on pageant fundamentals.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially representing the USA, I\u2019m trying to start going to different cities, learn from other people and volunteer with other people. That\u2019s mainly what my prep has been,\u201d Espinoza said. \u201cSo just going and volunteering, meeting new people, being able to talk about what I do. And you know also the walk prep, interview prep, just. Building my skills as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Espinoza is also promoting an upcoming Cars and Canines event tied to the first anniversary of the death of her friend Mia Molina.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy friend Mia Molina, she was our co-founder for Cars and Canines. She was tragically taken from us on September 24th last year,\u201d Espinoza said.<\/p>\n

She said the group will host Cars and Canines on Sept. 26 in Molina’s honor.<\/p>\n

Gia Solei Espinoza Miss Earth USA<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be hosting our Cars and Canines on September 26th in honor of her one-year passing. But to not just honor that, but honor her as a person, her kindness, her joy,\u201d Espinoza said. \u201cShe wasn\u2019t just a number statistic. She was a daughter, a sister, a friend, an advocate. Magic Queen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Espinoza said her title has given her a platform to speak about Molina and to advocate on issues including domestic violence and gun violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to now do all this and have this title, it\u2019s to honor her as well and to advocate for people in her circumstances as well,\u201d she said. \u201cSo being able to talk about her, honestly, is such a, like, so grateful for that because it makes sure that people in her circumstances are not alone. It gives people a voice and a safe space to talk their stories as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up<\/a> to receive the top interesting stories from in and around our community once daily in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 Fresh off being crowned 2026 Miss Earth USA, El Paso native Gia Solei…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-402136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}