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Manila Bulletin devider Entertainment devider Celebrities devider Love wins for international pageant king Branden Alaen and his partner

Love wins for international pageant king Branden Alaen and his partner

The pageant king said he has been living his best life in the Philippines for more than a year now.

Published May 17, 2025 02:54 pm
Pageant king Branden Alaen (right) and his partner (Images courtesy of Instagram)
International pageant king Branden Alaen has found love in the Philippines!
Braden not only enjoys his stay in the Philippines, but he has also found a special someone who makes his heart flutter.
On Instagram, Branden shared a photo with his "jowa" (a slang term for boyfriend/girlfriend in the Philippines). He did not identify his partner.
"Allow me to introduce you to my greatest blessing in the Philippines and the family that adopted me over the weekend," wrote Branden on Instagram with the hashtags #jowa #inlaws #emmansaints
From 2018 to 2022, Branden said he competed in three world pageants as Mister USA in the Dominican Republic, Thailand, and the Philippines.
After competing in the Mister International 2023 pageant, the American-Cuban model decided to stay in the Philippines and never returned to the US.
The pageant king said he has been living his best life in the Philippines for more than a year now.
Branden said that in 2017, he quit his eight-year job to make his own money.

A year later,  he also decided to stop studying to be a doctor.
He recalled his family pressured him to become a firefighter. But he said that was not his dream. But he said his family just laughed. That led him to join pageantry.
"It’s not until we release what’s not part of our divine assignment that we can truly answer the call to who we were designed to be after all. Due to all the competitions and my constant hustle, my Facebook reach spans 90 countries, and I’m now much more polished as a public figure," Branden wrote on social media.

Branden said his pageant days were over. He's now creating music (verified on Spotify) and working with a local modeling agency here on commercial projects. 
The man stated that if he had never disclosed his identity, he would not have achieved the status of "king" he holds today.
"May this be a lesson of self-reflection. Is it time to let go of what’s not serving you, so your destiny can be served? The pressure of conforming to everyone’s suggestion of who I should be and which path I should take was heavy, but I had to make a decision: be the main author of my life or just a supporting role to my own story," Branden added.

Related Tags

mister international mister usa mister cuba branden alaen male pageant pagent king
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