Sushmita Sen, an Indian actress and model, was crowned Miss Universe in 1994. It is the first time an Indian has won Miss Universe. At the age of 18, she had already won the Femina Miss India 1994 title. She has since performed as an actress in movies.

Sen was born in Hyderabad into a Bengali Baidya family to Subhra Sen, a jewellery designer and store owner located in Dubai, and Shubeer Sen, a former Indian Air Force Wing Commander. She went to St. Ann’s High School in Secunderabad and the Air Force Golden Jubilee Institute in New Delhi, but she did not continue her studies beyond that.

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Sen won the title of “Femina Miss India Universe” in 1994 while still a teen, giving her entry into the Miss Universe 1994 pageant. Sen placed third overall in the preliminary rounds of the Miss Universe competition, behind Miss Colombia Carolina Gómez and Miss Venezuela Minorka Mercado. Sen eventually won the title of Miss Universe after finishing second, fifth, and third in the following rounds. She became the first Indian to claim the honour.

Sen went on to become an actress following her time as Miss Universe. ‘Dastak’, her debut feature, came out in 1996. She garnered favourable reviews and financial success for the movie Aankhen, in which she costarred with Arjun Rampal.

Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Aditya Pancholi, and Paresh Rawal also acted in the movie. She played a chemistry instructor who falls in love with Shah Rukh Khan’s character in the 2004 action movie ‘Main Hoon Na’, which was her biggest commercial triumph to date. The movie was the second highest-grossing movie of that year with a total revenue of Rs 330,000,000.

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Sen’s initiative, ‘I Am She – Miss Universe India’, took over after the Times Group gave up control of selecting the Indian representative to Miss Universe and managed it for three years (2010 to 2012). After then, Femina took control.

On January 30, 2017, she made an appearance as one of the judges for Miss Universe 2016 in Manila, Philippines.  Sen made an appearance in the Disney+Hotstar TV show Aarya in 2020, for which she received the 2021 Critics’ Choice Award.

On July 14th 2022, Lalit Modi, the architect of the IPL, declared his admiration for the Bollywood diva on social media. Lalit revealed his relationship with Sushmita and his plans to be married in a series of tweets.