Juliette Powell, a former MuchMusic host and first Black Miss Canada, dead at 54
Powell, who was born in New York but moved to Montreal as a child with her French Canadian mother, died unexpectedly on June 3 after falling ill with acute bacterial meningitis, according to an obituary posted online.
She became a VJ for MusiquePlus, the French-language counterpart to MuchMusic, in 1992 and hosted the channel's the weekly dance music show Bouge de là! while she was a business student at Montreal's McGill University.
Powell then moved over to the English channel to host its popular Friday night dance music show Electric Circus from 1996 to 2000 and the Francophone music show French Kiss.
She was an economics student at the University of Toronto during her time at MuchMusic.
WATCH | Juliette Powell on MuchMusic's Electric Circus:
Former colleagues remember Powell
Her former MuchMusic colleagues remembered her on social media Tuesday after news of her death emerged.
Former host Master T said he was "blessed" work with Powell.
"Your bouncy positive energy will be missed. Rest easy, Juliette Powell! Gone too soon!" he wrote in a post on his Instagram story above a photo of Powell sitting on a control room desk with a smile on her face.
"Rest in a peaceful celestial party," Sook-Yin Lee, another former VJ and former CBC Radio host, said in an Instagram story post.
"Before I was a VJ, I was a fan. Watching MuchMusic as much as I could. Juliette was so cool, so French cool. I enjoyed her range of roles, especially on Electric Circus. Such sad news here," Jennifer Hollett, a former VJ and executive director of The Walrus, wrote on X.
After MuchMusic, Powell started as a business reporter for Toronto news channel CP24 and also founded a media and consulting company that led her to produce feature interviews with a range of prominent people, including Nelson Mandela, Steven Spielberg and Janet Jackson.
Powell broke ground in beauty pageant world
Prior to her being a fixture on Canadian television, Powell broke ground in the beauty pageant world when she was crowned Miss Canada 1989, in October 1988, then represented Canada in the Miss Universe pageant the following May.
Her obituary says she was "motivated by a desire to challenge racial biases in beauty pageants."
At the time of her crowning, Powell said she was proud to be the first mixed race person to win the pageant.
She said that she would "gladly serve as a role model for both white and Black Canadians" and that her win was "a great proof of multiculturalism in this country," according to an article by The Canadian Press published by the Montreal Gazette on Nov. 1, 1988.
When she crowned her successor a year later, Powell said the best part of being Miss Canada was seeing how much she had "developed and gained" during her reign.
WATCH | The moment Juliette Powell becomes first Black Miss Canada in 1989:
A new career path
Powell's interests in technology and ethics led her on a new career path after her time as a television host and reporter.
She worked in advisory roles for the United Nations, World Bank and World Economic Forum.
She studied at Columbia University and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor of arts in sociology.
She joined New York University's telecommunications faculty in 2021 and co-founded the New York-based consultancy firm Kleiner Powell International in 2024.
She was a keynote speaker as well as a commentator, appearing on CBC News, NBC, BBC and other Canadian and U.S. networks, sharing her expertise on issues like privacy, cybersecurity and unconscious bias in technology.
She had two books to her name: 2009's 33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business Using Social Networking and The AI Dilemma: 7 Principles for Responsible Technology, which she co-authored in 2023.
But beyond her career, her friendships were where she had "the most impact," her obituary reads.
"Juliette had a magical way of drawing people in with her infectious enthusiasm, and her brilliant intelligence and gorgeous smile lit up every room she ever entered. Her loss is devastating and she will be deeply, painfully missed by so many."
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