Exactly 20 years ago on November 19, 1994, Indian beauty queen Aishwarya Rai was crowned Miss World in Sun City, South Africa. She also won the Miss Photogenic title at the pageant that year.
Aishwarya's triumph followed that of Sushmita Sen, who had won the Miss Universe pageant.
In the two decades that has passed since she won Miss World aged 21, Aishwarya has become a top Bollywood actress, an internationally-known brand ambassador for L'Oreal and a regular and feted presence at the Cannes Film Festival. Along the way, she married actor Abhishek Bachchan and is now mother to three-year-old Aaradhya.
To celebrate Aishwarya's 20 year anniversary, here's a look at the young beauty queen as she was then.
In an interview to NDTV just after she had been crowned Miss World, Aishwarya said the one person she wanted to meet was Mother Teresa.
She also worried about sounding "contrived, cliched and practiced," and said she liked people to be "real and straightforward."
"Hypocrisy, double standards and pretentiousness," were the three things 21-year-old Aishwarya did not like.
She also said that she was happy with the way she had conducted herself at the Miss World pageant and would have gone home proud and pleased even if she hadn't won the crown.
She also had this little gem to offer when asked about Indian men: "I have to study that species well enough, I haven't."
Watch Aishwarya Rai in conversation with NDTV in 1994:
