TikTok comedian Taryn Delanie Smith is proud to have won Miss New York while wearing her natural hair

Gina DeLise
·Video Producer

The rising star is an inspiration for young people to embrace and celebrate who they are.

Video Transcript

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TARYN DELANIE SMITH: I love going into a space and the little girls come up to me with their pompoms, and their poofs in their hair, and their braids. You know, oh, my gosh. It always makes me so emotional.

It's just so cool when they look up, and they touch their hair, or they touch my hair, and I know that they're recognizing-- they're like, oh, it's-- I love her hair on her, so I can love my hair on me, you know? And if I even have that effect on one person, it just means a lot to me.

I am Taryn Delanie Smith. I am Miss New York, but I'm also a content creator. I am a comedian. I'm your gal pal. I'm just an everyday, funny gal, and I'm here with In The Know.

GINA DELISE: You currently have over 700,000 followers on TikTok, so what drew you to first post on the platform, and how has the journey been?

TARYN DELANIE SMITH: My mother in her 60s had to take TikTok, and I didn't. My mom was like, Taryn-- she's like, Taryn, you got to get on this thing because you're so silly and funny. But like, everyone's mom thinks they're great, and funny, and should have their own show, right?

And so finally one day, I was like, fine, and I made a TikTok. And then I did not plan on going back on the app ever again, and I was walking to work the next morning, and my boyfriend called me, and he was like, Taryn, somebody just sent me your TikTok. Do you know how many views it has? And I said, oh, my gosh. Does it have 1,000 views? Like, did it hit 1,000? And he was like, Taryn, has three million views. And I went, what? And then I was like, is that a lot?

And he was like, yeah, and I went and checked it out, and then within a couple of hours it, had 19 million views, and then all of a sudden it had 21 million views. And I am a chaos goblin, and I quit my job. I was like, you know what? Let's go. And I just started making content, and it's been so fun ever since then.

GINA DELISE: Your infectious personality just-- it comes across so well in your videos, so we're did you get this sense of humor?

TARYN DELANIE SMITH: Trauma.

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I have always been, like, loud as heck. Whenever I'd have trouble making friends or at school, my mom would always sit me down and go, Taryn, you're just a lot. And I always felt like, do I have to sacrifice the wit that naturally feels good to me to be accepted in the spaces I want to be in?

When you grow up often being the only person of color in the room-- I mean, I grew up in a very white community. There were certainly Black people in my community and my school, but it was oftentimes that I was one of the only in a classroom or in a room.

And so for me, when I first started competing, I didn't expect to win my first competition. I won Miss Seattle, and I did. And then I just really felt for the first time like I found the space where I was totally celebrated. I was no longer in trouble for talking too much. In fact, it was actually really cool that I did, and the more I competed, the more I was like, man, if I can be on this stage and show someone else that there are spaces for people like us, that felt worth it to me.

GINA DELISE: So you've mentioned how proud you are to be the first Black Miss New York who was crowned while wearing her natural hair.

TARYN DELANIE SMITH: Yeah. Yeah. It's super cool. For me, I'm by no means the first Black Miss New York at all. You know, we've had some amazing Black Miss New York, including Vanessa Williams, who went on to win Miss America and went on to have an amazing career.

Vanessa, if you watching this, you're my girl. I love you. Being crowned with my natural hair though is really cool because all the women that were in places that I wanted to be that look like me, I haven't seen anybody win without wearing a weave.

But I was like, it's my last year of eligibility. I'm going to just do this exactly as myself. This way if I lose and this dream never happens for me, I will never look back and wonder, what if I had done it authentically as myself? I never want to ask that question.

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