Miss Universe Jamaica Breaks Silence Over Traumatic Fall and New Lawsuit

Nearly a year after her dramatic and traumatizing fall at the Miss Universe pageant, former Miss Universe Jamaica contestant Gabrielle Henry is finally speaking at length about the fall, her injuries, and her road to recovery. Her words also come in the aftermath of a major legal decision she recently made as it concerns the Miss Universe Organization.

If you’ll remember, in November 2025, Henry took the fall during the preliminary evening gown competition and suffered a “fracture and intracranial hemorrhage” with “loss of consciousness, a fracture, facial lacerations and other significant injuries.”

Now, she’s speaking out for the first time at length in an essay with PEOPLE, following a newly filed lawsuit against the Miss Universe Organization for the role they played in her injuries. It’s important to note here that in December 2025, the organization assumed “full and immediate responsibility without hesitation” for the incident. Yet and still, that didn’t stop Henry from filing the suit, which claims negligence; premises liability; negligent hiring, retention, and supervision; and both negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress against the org.

Related: New Development in Miss Jamaica Health Status After Scary Fall at Miss Universe Pageant

Henry also claimed that the fall and the media storm that followed “caused, and continues to cause, severe emotional distress distinct from, and in addition to, the distress arising from her physical injuries.” She said that on that fateful day, she was just following the rehearsed choreography and that the intense lighting impaired her vision and caused her to fall offstage and five feet through an “unmarked and uncovered opening.”

The organization has since offered a surprising response to the suit, per Entertainment Weekly, noting that it hadn’t “received any lawsuit, claim, demand letter, or subpoena from Ms. Henry or anyone acting on her behalf.” They also said that the responsibility for the competition’s production, including the venue, stage, and on-site safety, rested with the host and production entities, MGI and Miss Universe Thailand, under the direction of Nawat Itsaragrisil.

In her essay, Henry described recovery from a traumatic brain injury as “difficult” and “an out-of-body experience.”

“You wonder where you went for those few moments, those 20 or 30 minutes of lost consciousness. You come back knowing something within you has become misaligned, out of place, and you try to wrap your head around exactly what it is. Your thoughts lag behind time, and certain memories become hard to grasp,” she said in part. “For me, it felt like I lost more than an opportunity; I lost the freedom to create memories I will never be able to replicate or match. I lost that chance.”

Henry went on to share just how painful and “disorienting” it was to go from confidently walking across a pageant stage to struggling to take a few steps down a hospital hallway. She detailed how her daily walks with her physiotherapists became something to look forward to, even as she shuffled around in hospital slippers with a support belt. And as an ophthalmologist, being confined to a hospital bed was an especially painful reminder of everything she had lost in the fall.

She continued by explaining how her recovery turned even the most basic bodily functions into victories. Henry said that the experience made her feel as though she were learning how to use her body all over again, while the kindness of the nurses helped her feel safe despite being completely vulnerable and unable to care for herself. However, there were moments when she suffered, enduring sleepless nights, severe back pain, and debilitating headaches.

Now that she’s slowly reintegrating herself back into society, one of the biggest lessons she’s learned is that even pageant queens—who are so often expected to lift others—sometimes have to let other people do the lifting.

 “I am realizing that on this journey we call life, the lessons that arise often come through adversity. I’ve been plucked from my comfort zone, from the feeling of ‘making it’ or getting further along my path, to realizing there wasn’t a fixed route to begin with,” Henry said. “As pageant queens, we are tasked with lifting others up. Throughout my journey, I learned to let others do the lifting.”