In The Purple Seat: John Owens

We had the privilege of interviewing Mr South Africa 2013/14, John Owens, who shared his Mr South Africa experience with us.

What is the difference between Mr and Miss South Africa? 

Mr South Africa is very similar to Miss South Africa if we look at it from a competition perspective but the way that you enter and the way that you win the competition is completely different. So Miss South Africa is a pageant and Mr South Africa is a competition. So Mr SA is looking for a model male, also a representative of the brand. We take the brand as a company so we look at it from that sense where Miss SA is more of a “face of”.

What are the requirements for entering? 

The competition is open to men between the age of 18 and 21, who are hungry and have a lot of dreams- with a valid South African ID and no criminal record.

What do you think the competition needs to achieve the same status and exposure as Miss/Mrs South Africa? 

I think mainly sponsors and a lot of money. Miss South Africa is owned by Sun International so that is already a huge backing, Mr South Africa is owned by an individual. So I think most probably the money behind it because it does take a lot of money to run a competition and for us to really take the title and save lives, we’ve really got to get out there and get more involved in a lot of things. And I think the more sponsorships, the more endorsements, the more companies see what we are all about because everyone associates us with a modelling competition and that’s completely wrong.

 Do you think that in a few years Mr SA will be able to achieve the same status as Miss SA, given that it is so much younger than Miss SA? 

I think so… If all the Mr SA’s stood together a bit instead of just moving away from the brand, like with Miss SA you could probably phone up Miss SA from 10 years ago and she would still somehow be part of the brand. That’s the one thing that I wanted to do- get all the former Mr SAs, obviously starting from me, still remains part of the brand. So it’s like an internal Mr SA club, and by that I think that the brand will grow. And believe it or not, Mr SA actually comes from the 1980’s.

It has been mentioned that you are involved with the Africa Blessing’s project. Can you tell us a bit more about this cause and how you got involved?

Well African blessings is actually just something that I do through the company that I work for so I am not actually actively involved with them, it’s more through the company and through the money that we make as well as the events that we get involved in. It’s purely through the company, but I have my own charity organisations that I do from The Little Fighters Cancer Trust and The Sunflower Fund. So I devoted my year to childhood cancer, and I said that I am not just going to choose one charity and devote my time to it, I will choose whatever charity is involved with child hood cancer.

Do you think that Mr SA is a good platform for giving voice towards charity? 

I do believe so but I think that you should do it for the right reasons and not do it to kind of get something out of it for your own benefit. Because I have a four year old daughter who is very healthy and bubbly and every so often I have to remind myself that it could’ve been different. It’s funny because having a title like Mr Sa, people want to listen and get involved and a lot of South African don’t know where to get involved. So though the Mr SA following that we have we definitely make a difference where we can.

Let’s move onto the juicy details- how has Mr SA affected your relationship? 

I actually had a relationship entering Mr SA and that relationship kind of fell apart after winning- literally about 4 months after winning Mr SA that relationship ended. But it’s unfortunate. I’ve said that I could never understand it, the celebrities out there. I could never understand why you have celebrities dating celebrities because I thought to myself “How boring would that be?” Because you have the same interests, you got the same type of things that you look at, what do you talk about in the evenings? Whereas where there is a celebrity and a person with a normal job, you at least have things to talk about. But after winning Mr SA I understand why you do that, because you need someone in your life that supports you 100%, you need somebody who understands if you get home at 2 o’clock in the morning and you are grumpy and you just want to go to bed. It’s affected my life 180 degrees.

So how do you think that the transition has been from being a normal guy on the street to being Mr SA?

Well it was tough in the beginning, simply because a lot of people look up to you because I am a very expressive guy. I normally say what’s on my mind whether it is positive or negative and I had to stop doing that. So I think that it’s changed me for the better.

So what does being Mr SA mean to you? 

Well to me it means quite a lot of things but I think that mostly it’s just setting a good example for other men in South Africa, I think purely because South African’s, specifically men, we don’t go to army any more so that whole transition of going from being a boy to becoming a man. So you look at 22/23 year olds out there with no direction in life, living with their parents, they’ve got no dreams- no ambition. Simply because of the role models and a lot of mean in South Africa grow up in broken homes where they grow up with either a mom or a dad and they grow up with no role models. We’ve got role models like sports players and actors, but it’s not easy if you don’t have the background to become someone like that. Specifically for myself, coming from literally nowhere. Winning a competition, making something out of it, I think it’s important for me to be a role model and just show other men on South Africa that anything is really possible.

What do you think of your predecessor compared to you compared to who came after you?

Well I don’t really know a lot about the guy that won the competition before me simply because he had his own race that he had. The guy that won just after me now, I actually know him from before he won Mr SA and I’ve assisted him through his reign as well, where I can, but my role was a little bit different. I had my things that I had going on but I got involved with the new competition as well. So all top 12 finalists that took part a couple of months ago I knew every single one of them. And the guy that won now, Armand du Plessis, very very nice guy, he really is. He’s very different to me, he’s got different things that he wants to do so I think that’s a good thing for the brand. That means that I can continue to do what I want to do and he’s going to make a different road for himself. He has different things that he believes in.

Do you think that this allows the brand to evolve more?

I do think so. I think that as a Mr SA you should, as long as you put the brand before your dreams. I know that people will go “But no, Mr SA is all about you”, but it’s not. It’s all about the brand. If you do things for the brand, and you put the brand out there and every big decision you make is for the brand then eventually the brand will look after you. And life will look after you because you get given 12 months and in the 12 months you must make the most of it.

Written by Ghia ten Doeschate