At 22 years old, Demi-Leigh Tebow stood on a global stage and heard the words every pageant contestant dreams of: “Miss Universe 2017.” Cameras flashed. Applause thundered. The crown—sparkling, coveted and heavy with meaning—was placed on her head.
Then, one year later, she handed it back.
“You work your whole life for something,” Tebow said, “and then you give it away. It felt like I was giving away the thing that made me worthy of being in the room.”
That was the moment everything shifted.
In her debut book, A Crown That Lasts, Tebow opened up about what happened after the cameras turned off. But this isn’t a story about fame, or even faith in the traditional Christian-ese sense. It’s about what happens when the titles disappear, the accolades fade, and you’re left with nothing but your reflection—and the question: Who am I without all of this?
Tebow is careful not to position herself as a life coach or an expert. She’s not here to hand you five steps to self-empowerment. Instead, she wants to tell the truth about what it’s like to lose your sense of identity when the spotlight moves on—and what she found in the darkness that followed.
“I didn’t even know how to get back to my dressing room,” she recalled after handing back her crown. “Everything had been done for me. And then suddenly, everyone moved on to the next girl, the next crown.”
That abrupt exit from the center of attention spiraled her into a space that felt eerily quiet. For someone whose calendar had once been filled by handlers, photo shoots and press interviews, the stillness felt like failure.
She even started pretending to be her own assistant to avoid having to explain what she was doing with her life.
“I didn’t want to talk to anyone, not because I didn’t care, but because I didn’t know who I was anymore,” she said. “I felt like a fraud. Like I had nothing to offer.”
That experience might sound dramatic coming from someone who’s worn a literal crown, but the truth is it’s not that different from what many people face when they lose the thing they thought made them valuable. A job title. A relationship. A diploma. A carefully curated identity. When that thing disappears, so often, so does our sense of self.
From Self-Confidence to Something Steadier
“I thought confidence meant trusting myself fully,” she said. “But I failed myself. Over and over again.”
Tebow began to notice that the word “self-confidence” had led her down a shaky path.
“Confidence means full trust,” she said. “But the trust I placed in myself was limited. Eventually, it crumbled.”
What replaced it was something she calls God-confidence—not just belief in a higher power, but an anchoring of identity in something that wouldn’t collapse under pressure. Something unmoved by failure. Something constant.
She doesn’t claim the shift was easy or instantaneous. It took time. And it took action. She started serving other people—not to stay busy, but to get her focus off herself. She started praying, not for a breakthrough, but for clarity. She surrounded herself with people who would speak truth over her when she couldn’t see it on her own. Slowly, her life began to center on something sturdier.
One of the biggest internal shifts came when she stopped equating excellence with perfection.
“The Bible talks about striving for excellence,” she said. “Daniel was praised for it. But somewhere along the way, we start thinking excellence means being flawless. It doesn’t.”
For Tebow, excellence now looks like faithfulness. Showing up. Being present. Holding her identity loosely and her faith tightly.
Still, comparison crept in.
“You open your phone and someone else’s life looks better than yours,” she said. “Their vacation is better than the vacation you didn’t even take. Their job, their house, their body—it all looks perfect.”
She knows how dangerous that spiral can be. And she knows how easily it robs us of the very moments we’re meant to live.
“Comparison makes you miss your life,” she said.
“It makes you strive for perfection instead of presence. And it subtly tells you that who you are isn’t enough, that God made a mistake.”
But she’s come to believe that’s not just unhealthy—it’s a form of disrespect toward the one who created us.
“We’re made fearfully and wonderfully,” she said. “And when we look at someone else and say, ‘I wish I was more like them,’ we’re saying, ‘God, you didn’t get it right with me.’”
That mindset doesn’t just affect our confidence—it affects our purpose. And for Tebow, purpose is the whole point.
“Life isn’t just a collection of big, glamorous moments,” she said. “It’s the small, faithful steps that stack up into something meaningful.”
She wants to live a life that outlasts her. One that impacts people, not just impresses them. One rooted not in crowns or titles, but in something eternal.
What Actually Lasts
She’s not against ambition. She’s not here to tell anyone to stop working hard or dreaming big. But she does want to ask where our identity is rooted. Because if it’s in anything that can be taken away—a job, a platform, a relationship—it’s going to collapse eventually.
“The Bible literally warns us not to chase perishable crowns,” she said, referencing 1 Corinthians 9:25. She laughs. “Some of those crowns were made of celery leaves. That’s just a head salad. That doesn’t last.”
The shift she’s made is less about career change and more about core change. It’s about choosing to build her identity on something that won’t spoil, something not dependent on applause or status or circumstance.
“Jesus isn’t just a promise-maker,” she said. “He’s a promise-keeper. He’s the only one who doesn’t change. And that’s where I’ve had to place my identity—because everything else moves.”
Today, the literal crown sits in storage. But Tebow’s sense of worth doesn’t. It shows up in the way she lives. In how she talks to women about value and purpose. In how she carries herself with a mix of vulnerability and conviction. And in her decision to share the parts of her story that don’t look polished—but do look real.
Not because she’s got it all figured out.
But because she’s finally learned that she doesn’t have to.
