Jenna Honeo from Brackley, Northamptonshire, is the winner of Pride Stars: Home Edition 2020, the Global Online Talent Contest that celebrates international talent with Pride.
33-year old Jenna Honeo has won the global online talent contest Pride Stars: Home Edition. Thousands of participants registered to audition and after 8 quarter finals, 2 semi-finals and the Grand World Final, thousands of votes from the competition’s audience alongside the professional jury’s vote confirmed Jenna as the overall winner.
Pride Stars was created initially as a live talent contest amongst major global LGBTQ+ Pride festivals, popular all over the world for providing a platform for new, upcoming talent. The winner of each Pride Stars live show typically represents their home country, and local Pride festival at the Grand World Final held at Winter Pride Maspalomas each November. Pride Stars 2020 should have been that very competition with a number of confirmed Pride events from all over the world; New Zealand to Africa, Europe to the far East and even Canada to South America.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pride Stars production team decided to carefully consider a number of options that would see a Global Pride Stars competition take place whilst also still retaining the competitions ethos of shining a light on Pride and the LGBTQ+ community, whilst celebrating the incredible intersectional talent we hear of; worldwide. Creating the Home Edition took many months of hard work but when thousands of worldwide talents registered, auditioning by sending a home videos, it was evident just how much people expect and respect the Pride Stars brand and what it’s setting out to achieve year on year.
Over 80 talents from 25 countries were then selected to participate with the online competition broadcast via the popular social streaming platform: YouTube. The international LGBTQ+ television channel OUTtv also broadcast the finals and results to millions of spectators alongside a variety of online, FM and DAB radio stations both in the UK and worldwide including Pride World Radio, Trans Radio UK and The Proud Show.
Through every stage the Pride Stars: Home edition audience had the opportunity to vote for their favourite contestants using the free Pride Stars voting app, this contributed to 50% of each talents overall score with the other 50% of votes given by a professional jury consisting of celebrities, tv personalities and artistes either personally part of the LGBTQ+ community or known allies, additionally votes from advocates such as worldwide LGBTQ+ bodies or organisations and the participating Pride festivals.
The Quarter Finals were made up of four national groups; Italy, UK, USA and Spain and 4 World Groups. The Top 3 moved on to the semi-finals where each talent was given the opportunity to record a new home performance video. With the semi-final winners then progressing to the next stage: The Grand World Final.
The Grand World Final contained 8 contestants from three continents (USA, Africa and Europe) representing a total of 7 countries around the world. The Grand World Final first broadcast on the 31st October and for a period of 7 days, Pride Stars viewers once again voted for their winning contestant using the free Pride Stars voting app.
On November 13th, the Pride Stars production team confirmed that the winner of the first online edition of Pride Stars known as Pride Stars: Home Edition; is Jenna Honeo, representing the United Kingdom. As the competition winner, Jenna not only celebrated as the 2020 Pride Star, she also won the following prizes: A cash prize, a laptop, a trip to the 2021 Pride Canal Parade in Amsterdam, a trip and opportunity to perform at the 2021 Winter Pride in Maspalomas, Gran Canaria and an amazing LGBTQ+ Pride goodie bag. In addition, Jenna’s incredible talent should be celebrated and therefor will be added to the roster of an international artists booking agency.
The Pride Stars: Home Edition 2020 Runner up is confirmed as Stanley Weissohn, representing Germany followed by Peter Sarah, representing Nigeria voted into 3rd place.
The following jury members were involved: Stephen Ireland (Pride in Surrey), Mauro Angelozzi (Rome Pride), Martin Christensen (Aalborg Pride), Clayton Mercieca (Malta Pride), Nicolas van Elsué (Luxembourg Pride), Marcel Bakker (Keiroze Amersfoort), Jenny Ball (winner Pride Stars 2019) and Roberto Herrera (TV personality in Spain)
Pride Stars Home Edition 2020 is supported by OUTTV and Pride World Radio and was hosted by Soraya Vivian and Stephen Ireland.
Emiel Wijnberg, managing partner at Pride Stars says: “To see Jenna win is just phenomenal! She is all we could wish for, she is hugely talented, she has no prejudices and is a very hard worker. She’s had a difficult past but overcame it all with the right mindset and now she is our very first Home Edition winner. It will be great to see her perform live next year at the Winter Pride Maspalomas main stage.”
Stephen Ireland (Pride in Surrey), producer and presenter of the ‘Proud show’ and the presenter of Pride Stars: Home edition grand finals and results show confirmed “Pride Stars is a go to talent show year on year that shines a light on the Pride movement, celebrates the amazing diverse talent worldwide and also gives a platform for one and all to recognise in solidarity the challenges LGBTQ+ people alongside other minority groups such as those with disabilities, face wherever they may be around the world. I am proud to have played a small part in this incredible online talent competition and recognise the significant value it has across the community for simply being visible for those who may feel isolated through these unprecedented times to see”
Link/s: Pride Stars Home Edition Grand World Final 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLsr4TaUmbg
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Note for the publishers: more information, statements, pictures etc. can be requested at joris@pridestars.com