Wicked Fit's Monique Jones | yohana
PAGEANT QUEEN: I was four when I started. Every parent thinks their child is beautiful, and mine saw an ad and were like, ‘Sign her up!' We didn't know anything about pageants other than Miss America. My mom dressed me in OshKosh B'Gosh overalls with little rosebuds on them. All the girls were in party dresses, so my mother ran into a store, bought a cute party dress real quick, came back, threw it on me and sent me into interview. We also had to do talent. Mine was twirling around incessantly to Lionel Richie's "Ballerina Girl." I didn't know what was going on, but I thought it was great—I'm on stage in a tutu! The crowning ceremony came, and I was the only one who got nothing. I walked right up to the director, pulled her by her skirt and said, ‘Excuse me, ma'am, I think you forgot my crown.' My mother was like, 'We're never doing this again! I can't put her through this!' My dad was like, ‘We'll be back, trust me.'
SECOND-IN-COMMAND: I was one of the first pageant girls Katie started training, before she was even at The Fitness Club for Women. She had trained a lot of men and at that point wanted to get into training pageant girls. I was probably a guinea pig, but it ended up working out in the end! When she opened up her gym, she was like, ‘Monique, you know everything that I know. You've been with me for this whole crazy process. Why don't you become a trainer?' At first I was like, really, I'm the girl who used to eat Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and a Big Mac for lunch. But there's a million personal trainers in the world and very few who have that ability with pageant girls. When someone pushes you and is like, 'You need to do this because this is what you could be good at,' that's when you know somebody really means it. I can definitely do this and be a very important role within her gym—not to mention I can give her a break here and there!
WORKING GIRLS: Katie and I met on the pageant circuit. We get along so well—we're a dynamic duo. Especially with our pageant girls and the boot camps, we have the opportunity to talk about things that we're passionate about and guide these girls along this crazy journey. I learn a lot from Katie too—I get to actually experience personal training every single day as opposed to just opening a book and reading about it. The only thing is that Katie is such a neat freak with how everything needs to be. If something's not in an exact spot, I'm okay, whereas with Katie, everything has it's place. She has a great way of being a boss and because I've known her for so long, I know what I can get away with and what I can't. I know my boundaries.
CATTY CO-WORKERS: Monica and I basically agree to disagree. We're two completely different kinds of people. Monica is very business-oriented, and that's amazing. She's very book smart, where as I live it and do it. We had a lot of personal things that were effecting our business lives, so it was very important for us to get that out in the air to be able to focus on the gym and helping Katie. Are we ever going to be best friends? No. Would I trust her with more information than my bra size? No. But can we work together and be cordial and maybe friends? I'm putting it out there. At the end of the day, the common denominator between Monica and I is that we both care about Katie. We were borderline having to call in Dr. Drew Pinsky, but we didn't. At the end of the day, that's what was important.
TRAINING SOLA: I actually competed with Sola. My last year at Miss Mass was Sola's first year there. I didn't know who she was, and I remember when they called her in the top five I was like, 'Where did she come from?' These last couple of years, she's consistently been in the top five, and she's moved up in the ranks, so she's clearly doing something right. Sola's a good competitor, very intense. Much like me, she doesn't hold back or have a filter. When you have three people like that in one room, that's a little scary. But It's not that we wrote a book on pageants—we lived this, Sweetheart. She understands that. She's a tough one, that Sola.
HOME SWEET HOME: I was engaged to be married, and I was with my fiancé for five years. Things didn't work out. When I was with him, we split bills. When you don't have anybody to do that with, all of the sudden you're sitting there trying to make a dollar out of a nickel. My mom has always said, 'God forbid, you always have a bed here.' I love my mother to death. She's on a need to know basis and that woman needs to know. At 28 years old, I may be nine inches taller than her and half her age, but she's like, ‘This is my house. I am the queen of the castle. You are the princess. Just remember that.' I'm like, 'Okay!'
WORK FLIR: I just had my breakup. I'm very jaded and have my guard up with a lot of people. Markus is fun to flirt with. He's a pain in my ass, but he's cute, sweet and fun. You can't stop if anything happens, but for right now, it's just fun flirting.
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