Nothing can destroy me: Trans tycoon Anne JKN is a hopeless romantic with a knack for making history

Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip, the trans Thai billionaire who bought the Miss Universe pageant last fall, brings to mind the song “If I Ruled the World” — not the Nas hit featuring Lauryn Hill or the Kurtis Blow track, but the Tony Bennett version, which the singer popularized in the 1960s when anything seemed possible.

“My world would be a beautiful place, where we would weave such wonderful dreams,” Bennett unspools on his 1965 album “Songs for the Jet Set,” over a symphony of strings. “My world would wear a smile on its face, like the man in the moon has, when the moon beams.”

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Trans Miss Universe owner hurls truth bombs during pageant speech. She’s turning “pain into power”

“I was not accepted by society because they did not want to embrace my differences. But guess what?…I chose not to surrender.”

For all her high-stakes deal-making, the 44-year-old media mogul is an unapologetic romantic, with billions of Thai bhat to back up her dreams.

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“Okay, just the two of us,” Jakrajutatip tells me as an assistant makes for an exit in the apartment she keeps on her studio lot in Bangkok. Her hair is pulled back and she wears a voluminous white terry cloth robe. It’s 10 pm in Thailand.

While her English is far from perfect, Jakrajutatip, who goes by Anne JKN for most audiences these days, gets her point across clearly in lilting paragraphs punctuated with question marks to make sure you get her meaning. She laughs easily.

Referring to her popular moniker, the sometime TV host and two-time mother says the shorter name is just easier for everyone.

“Anne JKN, that’s right. Jakkaphong Network, that is my name and also my company’s name. Also in the stock market. That’s why it was easy.”

“I think American audiences would like that very much,” I tell her.

“Oh, yeah?”

“It’s like Cher or Madonna. Very catchy.”

Anne JKN loves this and laughs with delight.

“Oh, good!”

I ask what inspired her to buy the Miss Universe organization last year from IMG-Endeavor, who ended up with the pageant following NBC-Universal’s breakup with Donald Trump in 2015 when he announced his first run for president and his disdain for Mexicans.

She replies with a biography that traces her time getting bullied as a young child for her effeminacy, which helped her forge “pain into power”; getting assaulted by a male teacher at age 12; becoming her school’s debate champ at 16 because “nothing can kill you at the end of the day”; leaving home as a teenager to pump gas in Sydney; starting her own media company and earning millions by her mid-20’s; and “running away from home” at 25 to return a billionaire at 38.

“Nothing can destroy me at all,” she says.

Anne Jakrajutatip, the new owner of Miss Universe, delivered an empowering speech yesterday: “Welcome to the new era. From now on it’s gonna be run by women, owned by a trans woman, for all women around the world.” pic.twitter.com/TJXV8EPkAv

— Dan Hastings-நாராயணன் (@notdanhastings) January 15, 2023

That return also marked a transformation.

At 37, Jakrajutatip listed her company on Thailand’s stock exchange and flew to Los Angeles, where she preserved her sperm. In quick succession, she gained a new identity, both as a woman and a mother.

“Through the surgery, everything about it — it was not painful. It was really a victory for me, to become a woman with my joy, happiness. With my — what I call here — with a positive energy, with a good attitude all the time. I went into the surgery room. I cried the whole time. I did hold the hand and I said to the doctor” — she whispers here — “Thank you, doctor. Maybe I can find myself.”

“I opened my eyes the next day,” she says, her eyes going wide and a smile breaking out. “What?! I became a woman!”

She’s laughing with joy now. “And the vagina is not in pain at all!”

“This is who I am,” she adds, explaining her relief. “Because you really have a desire for a long time. So I just came full circle. I became who I am. And I love it!”

Two kids soon followed with a German-American egg donor, born eight months apart in the U.S. with two surrogates, granting the children American passports along with their mother’s Thai citizenship.

While she’s partnered with a thirty-something British national (“He’s very good looking, isn’t he?” Anne JKN confirms), she wanted full control over her kids.

“I don’t want anyone to be called as Daddy. One day once we break up, what would happen? So everyone, why should we call him that? No, call him ‘Uncle.’ Better. I’m not married yet. That’s why I’m a single mom.”

I ask if she and the attractive Brit have marriage plans.

“At the moment, it’s up to him, not me,” she explains, laughing. “Very traditional! I’m fine, actually. I think Oprah did the same way. And she did the right thing.”

I wanted to know more about her kids and what kind of trade-offs there are raising two young children and running a hydra-headed media empire.

“I know. Four years old, my eldest son, his name is Andrew. I was Andrew before I passed my name to him. The second one is Angelica. She’s three. They’re very young, very positive, very cute now. Half German, half me. So I enjoy the motherhood. But I wish I could have more time.”

“Everyone’s suffering the same thing when you’re a workaholic person, right?” she asks. “Never a life balance, never enough. I have my service to do for the whole world. I have to trust my mom. And she’s raised them up very well. But I see them like every weekend. And weekdays they often come to the office. I kiss them and hug them and see them. They have to go back home after school to sleep early. So, I have to sacrifice my motherhood a little bit.”

“A little bit,” I add reassuringly.

“But not much. Yeah. Not all the time I can be with them, but they know that I’m here.”

Now with her personal life full and her business booming, Anne JKN was looking for something to bring them together.

“Now I ask myself, ‘What next?’ When I have my entire business, I have my own family, I’m the mother of two, financially successful, and gained the strength from being myself. What next for me, really?”

What, Anne JKN thought, could complete the circle?

In 2022, she learned the Miss Universe organization was for sale and immediately thought back to four years earlier, when the pageant was held in Thailand, and when Angela Ponce, Miss Spain, competed as the first openly transgender contestant in the pageant’s history (Donald Trump signed off on the admission of transgender women to the contest in 2012).

“I was in the front row,” Anne JKN recalls. “She was the first trans woman walking on the stage in the final competition. She came on this stage, she cried. She talked in the video, ‘I did not come here to win. I just wanted to come here to convince everyone that yes, we can do it. There are trans women. And trans women, we are women.’ I cried. I stood up and I applaud her a lot, to the point, like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is it, I’ve been to the full circle moment. And this is my next move. Yes. My next move.'”

In October 2022, the Miss Universe organization was hers.

Anne Jakapong Jakrajutatip, CEO of JKN Global Group, is the first woman owner of the Miss Universe Organization. pic.twitter.com/zcN6aGR7A6

— Miss Universe (@MissUniverse) October 28, 2022

“Of course we did the due diligence and a lot of law firms from Bangkok to New York office. It’s a lot for a Thai trans woman to buy the American company that used to be owned by a lot of big names before. Yeah? A lot of big names.”

She laughs at the thought, and offers a polite “No comment” when I ask her to compare her own management style with Trump’s.

What she did provide was a vision of Miss Universe as a multi-faceted platform for women’s empowerment.

“I have the purpose of Miss Universe to elevate people to the next level, to be the best version of themselves. Not just having it a one-time event each year. Therefore, my purpose might be a little bit different.”

“85% of fans are women and LGBTQ,” she points out, adding with a big laugh: “So do you think that I’m suitable to do so?”

We come back to her declaration that “nothing can kill me.”

“I think it’s just about gaining the strength. A lot of people, they feel down. They feel so discouraged when they are different. I think the power within you, within yourself, the power within is the most important. The light you carry in yourself is the most important. You have to keep talking to yourself. ‘Yes, it’s possible. Yes, I am visionary enough to see it is going to be done. Do it this way. God will be with me.’ No matter what we are, we have the blessing from him. Just believe it, believe in it! Be positive! Nothing is wrong. People who are successful never give up. That’s why. You need to have that kind of persistence and endurance.”

I ask if she’s a religious person.

“Not so religious, actually. But I do believe in the divine energy of the universe. And that’s why I own the Miss Universe pageant.”