Maria Thattil on beauty standards, life lessons and her girlfriend, former AFLW star Moana Hope: ‘She’s my life’

The former Miss Universe Australia opens up about beauty standards, life lessons – and why she’s ‘protective’ of her personal relationship.

Media personality Maria Thattil has taken the spotlight thrust upon her as Miss Universe Australia 2020 and shone it instead on causes supporting women and marginalised communities.

Even so, naysayers abound, trying to cast a shadow on her efforts. In a conversation with the Stellar podcast Something To Talk About, Thattil, 31, explains the best way to fend off trolls is to let her work speak for itself.

Stellar: It has been four years since you were crowned Miss Universe Australia in October 2020. From the start, you knew you wanted to use that platform to build a multi-hyphenate career and ignite conversations about sexuality, racism and feminism, to name but a few. What are some early memories that stand out about any resistance you encountered when transitioning from your beauty pageant origins to the career you have now?

Maria Thattil: The experience that stands out to me was right after I had won. I was trolled online because something I said was taken out of context – it was to the effect of “I’m too beautiful to work”. People are very quick to respond to clickbait. I know no-one read what I’d actually said. For about my first two weeks as Miss Universe Australia, my Instagram page grew by 10,000 people and people were sending me things like death threats, telling me to kill myself, that my personality was why I couldn’t get a job. They were saying “Deport her” – I’m born and raised here – and it opened the floodgates for racism. I spent the first two weeks of my “reign” crying on the couch, telling my family, “I don’t think I can do this.

Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

Listen to the full interview with Maria Thattil on the latest episode of Something To Talk About:

Maria Thattil (continued): I don’t want this.” My brother sat me down and said, “You’re tougher than this. The Maria I know isn’t going to spend all the time crying on the couch. This is actually why we need to be doing this.” I told myself, “I know I can’t convince everybody and nor should I, but I’m going to let my work speak for itself.” And so that’s why I’ve been so intentional with advocacy and being vocal about my diverse background, in terms of what I’ve studied and what I’ve done.

Stellar: You recently posted an image of yourself in a swimsuit on Instagram and called out somebody who criticised your body. Now, some people might wonder what there is to critique in someone who looks like you – but that’s not the point, is it?

Maria Thattil: The point is why people still feel the need to comment on women’s bodies at all. I think there’s this real thing with society obsessed with humbling women. And in Australia, there’s a tall poppy syndrome where we tell women, “Be confident. We want to sell you products to make you confident.” But then off the back of that, if a woman is too confident, we sort of turn our nose up and go, “My God, who does she think she is?” We tell women, “We want you to be sexy”, but if you’re too sexy, then it’s like, “You’re a little bit slutty, aren’t you?” We’re all trying to walk this tightrope that’s continuing to get more frayed. I don’t care for any of it anymore. And so when I get those comments about my body, I’ll start by saying, “Yes, I’m a petite woman …

Picture: Sam Bisso for Stellar

Maria Thattil (continued): Yes, I don’t live in a marginalised body. There are people who have disabilities. There are people who are larger in size. There are people who are darker skinned, who have different lived experiences to me.” But like you said, that’s not the point. The point is I put up a post of myself where you can see my cellulite, you can see my stretch marks. I’ve had that on a petite body since I was a teenager, and it fluctuates as my weight changes. I get these comments a lot when I may be a little bit curvier than I usually am, but even when I’m on the thinner side. I’ve had people either applauding it … And then on the flip side of that, I’d go to fittings and there’s one particular designer I would see that used to always make remarks like, “God, you need to eat a burger.” No matter what you do or how you look, people are going to comment on your body. The problem isn’t your body. The problem is society’s entitlement to critiquing, judging and telling someone else how they should present [themselves].

Listen to the full interview with Maria Thattil on the latest episode of Something To Talk About:

Still on the topic of physical appearance, you’re an ambassador for haircare brand Wella and part of your work with them has been around a survey showing that there’s an apparent correlation between women’s confidence in their physical appearance and their sexual confidence?

Wella commissioned research with YouGov and they found that for 3.1 million Australian women, their biggest sexual concern had to do with feeling insecure about their appearance. And then there was research that found that women are more likely to feel sexually attractive and confident when having a good hair day. And so I want to make the distinction and be very clear that this isn’t saying you need to have good hair to have sex, because I can tell you I’ve had great sex and sometimes my hair has been in a bun that’s four days old. I think it just comes back to this thing of, we tell women we want them to look good, but if you spend a little too much time on it, we critique them for being too indulgent. But this campaign is about demystifying and destigmatising all of that and saying, “Invest in things that make you feel good.”

‘She’s my life!’: Maria Thattil and her girlfriend, Moana Hope. Picture: Supplied

Maria Thattil says she is very protective of her personal relationship and won’t allow ‘people to exploit that’. Picture: Supplied

You’ve been in a relationship with former AFLW player Moana Hope for over a year. As two high-profile women from very different industries and backgrounds, how have you navigated the attention on your relationship?

It has been so interesting. You’re right; we have come from totally different worlds. She’s so amazing and accomplished and interesting in her own right, and I know that people are interested in what I do in my own right. So naturally, when you put that together, people want to know. But this is our life. She’s my life. She’s my family. And I’m going to be protective of that and not allow people to exploit that.

See the full shoot with Maria Thattil inside the latest issue of Stellar, out on Sunday. Picture: Stellar

I’ve learnt that I don’t owe people anything just because I share a little bit. It doesn’t mean I have to share everything. We’re really clear with each other about what our boundaries are. Obviously there are so many other people involved in the wider family; we just want to be really respectful. We can share our joy but when it comes to the real ins and outs of our lives, I just choose to protect that and keep it sacred because it’s my real life.

Listen to the full interview with Maria Thattil on the latest episode of the Stellar podcast, Something To Talk About. See her full shoot inside Stellar on Sunday via The Sunday Telegraoh (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (SA) and Sunday Mail (QLD). For more from Stellar, click here.

Originally published as Maria Thattil on beauty standards, life lessons and her girlfriend, former AFLW star Moana Hope: ‘She’s my life’