H'Hen Niê

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H'Hen Niê is a Vietnamese model and beauty queen. She was born on May 15, 1992, in Cư M'gar, Đắk Lắk. She belongs to the Rade ethnic minority and spoke the Rade language at home; she learned Vietnamese in eighth grade.

Growing up, H'Hen helped her family on a coffee farm. She is the third of six children, and she chose to keep studying instead of following traditional early marriage customs. She studied for a year at Nha Trang National Ethnic Community College and then moved to Ho Chi Minh City to study corporate finance at the College of Foreign Economic Relations. To pay her bills, she worked as a domestic worker. While interning at a bank, she began to pursue modeling. In 2014, she was discovered by Đỗ Mạnh Cường.

In 2015, she tried out for Vietnam’s Next Top Model and finished in the top group. She went on to win Miss Universe Vietnam 2017, becoming the first winner from an ethnic minority group. She represented Vietnam at Miss Universe 2018 in Bangkok and finished in the Top 5, the best result ever for Vietnam. For the national costume, six designs were in the running, and a nationwide vote chose Bánh Mì as Vietnam’s outfit for the pageant.

A YouTube series called Road to Miss Universe 2018 followed her training. She won the 2018 Timeless Beauty Award from Missosology. Her modeling career blossomed with brand work, magazines, and fashion shows.

In July 2019, she joined Lệ Hằng (Miss Universe Vietnam 2016) in The Amazing Race Vietnam Season 6 as the Yellow Team; they won the race and a prize of 300 million VND for charity. She hosted I Am Miss Universe Vietnam 2019, but left due to health issues.

H'Hen has donated prize money from Miss Universe Vietnam to scholarships for students at her old schools. She became a global ambassador for Room to Read in 2018, raising about $20,000 to build a library in Bao Thuan Elementary School and to fund girls’ education. The new library opened in October 2018 and hosts thousands of books for students and the community.

She backs education as a path out of poverty and also supports the elderly and HIV/AIDS victims. In February 2019, she started a project to bring clean water and street lights to her village, aiming to complete it before the end of her reign in late 2019.