Robbie Canner is a 63-year-old international model, and an international and national judge. She was crowned Ms. World back in 2018/19, and she’s also a public speaker on the topic “Age Is No Barrier.”
Since winning the Ms. World title, her public profile has considerably grown, allowing her to promote her platform and raise awareness and funds for cancer research. Winning major international titles in her 60s has given her a platform, showing men and women from all walks of life that age is no barrier to what anyone can achieve.
Since losing her son to cancer, her emotional and mental stress led her to visit thoughts such as, “I don’t want to be here anymore,” or “I want to be with my son.” However, eventually, her inner strength led her to want still to continue living, have a say, and give direction to help others in any area of situational, emotional, and mental stress – assuring them that things can get better in time.
She loves chatting to future queens and friends she meets along her journey and wants to help them achieve their hopes and goals.
GEM magazine recently caught up with Robbie to discuss her journey in the industry, and here’s what went down:
Could you please tell our readers a brief background about yourself?
I joined pageantry at the grand young age of 57 years old after I lost my son to cancer. Being not in a really great place emotionally, I was looking for something to put my mind to and a charity platform for my son’s cancer, and that’s when I found the Scott Canner Young Investigator Grant through Tour de Cure. My first pageant in 2015 gave me a taste for pageants and the great friendships I made. In 2016 I won the Ms. Global United Australia title, which sent me to Minneapolis, USA, for the Ronald McDonald House for kids’ cancer, where I won the international title. From there, I entered Ms. World in 2018 and won that, and from there, I started my international modelling career, including Fashion shoots, TV Interviews, and becoming a pageant director. Now I love mentoring our young Queens, growing their confidence, and developing their future careers.
How did you become an international influencer? What’s it like to be an influencer?
Being called an International Influencer is a title that I am not totally comfortable with. Still, nevertheless, a title that gives me a platform to chat, mentor, and help develop and encourage people of all ages being in the same situation as me and a level that allows contact from those who otherwise, just like me in the past would not normally have someone to speak their emotions to. It gives me great satisfaction to know that I have many followers around the world who respect my situation and advise me to keep in touch and grow just like I have.
What has been your greatest triumph to date?
It’s where I have grown through having the guts to get up and ask for help, put my worst emotions out there, and am now in a position to help others. Triumph is a multi-level word, encompassing emotions, passions, growth, development, and being able to get up and get going again in the face of many adversities. Also, the confidence of winning a Ms. World title and growing from there has become very personal to me in the growth and mental arenas of walking International runways worldwide.
What do you think you came into this life to learn, and what do you think you came here to teach?
I came into this life to enjoy, love life, try and make all the right decisions, make fabulous friends, stay fit and healthy and should adversity come into my life, work out how and why I would address this for the best outcome of not only for myself but others.
This is an open-ended question, but it makes me look inside myself for the answers. I feel I am on the right path to achieving most of the outcomes. Where I would like to go from here is a growth of confidence which, as someone said to me, “No one would think you lacked confidence.” Well, I do, in many ways, and I do not like conflict in any form. If faced with this, I can withdraw into myself, but I always find a way out of my own maze and take on lessons; growth is always the outcome.
To have a platform to help others in many ways, from opportunities, chats, social media, guest speaking, and speaking with you all here in this fantastic magazine, I find to be rather cathartic and brings on fresh ideas of what and where I wish to grow to from here.
What projects are you working on right now?
Fashion weeks around the world, starting a new career with Qantas, still having the satisfaction after 38 years in my sports therapy practice of helping people achieve a pain-free life, writing a book, creating a new pageant system, and just being content with having my beautiful friends and opportunities in abundance.
What would you still like to attempt in your career?
A cover in New York, Paris, and London and just continue to be happy with where I sit right now.
What advice would you give to those hoping to follow in your footsteps?
Know who you are and what you want, and if at any time you feel bullied or let down, know your own worth and don’t let anyone put you down. Grow as I have, stand up for yourself, apologise if needed, and know in your heart that lessons have been learned and never need to be revisited again.
