Kylie Verzosa Knows What She Wants

Kylie Verzosa comes prepared. Like, really prepared.

Across two days of shoots—first for our Cosmo cover, then a few days later for her podcast, Almost Honest with Kylie Verzosa—the pattern was clear: Kylie had done her homework. She had pegs for the clothes and accessories, thoughts on the creative direction, and a clear sense of what she wanted the final product to look like.

That approach extends beyond shoots. Kylie has become increasingly selective about the projects she takes on, the people she spends time with, and where she puts her energy. In her 20s, she says, she was more willing to say yes just to prove she could. Now, she's much more deliberate about what gets her time and attention.

That sense of control is fitting for someone whose life currently has so many moving parts. There's Kylie the former Miss International winner, Kylie the actress, Kylie the founder behind SOLA and &you, Kylie the podcast host, Kylie the advocate, Kylie the fashion girl. She could easily be pulled in a dozen different directions, but she doesn't seem particularly interested in choosing just one lane.

"I don't think I ever wanted to be just one thing," she tells me.

Instead, she's figured out how to make every version count.

Kylie has spent the last decade figuring out which parts of herself she wants to hold on to and which ones she's ready to leave behind. In her 20s, she says, there was a lot of proving: proving she was beautiful, that she belonged, that she could act, that she was more than a beauty queen, that she deserved to be chosen.

But for all the different hats she's worn, Kylie never wanted to be just one thing. And once she commits to something, she doesn't really believe in doing it halfway.

"When I do something, I want to do it perfectly, and I want to do it well," she tells me. "Like, I'm not gonna leave that category unless I absolutely killed it."

She points to the crown, her acting career, her businesses, and now Almost Honest. Winning Miss International was the goal when she entered pageantry; a Best Actress award was the dream when she moved into acting. With SOLA, she wanted to build the best brand she could. Now, she wants the same for her podcast.

It's that all-in mentality that makes her newfound ability to say no all the more significant. It took years to shake the crown's shadow, even after she had started building a career beyond it. Now, she doesn't really care.

"At a point when you start to achieve all these things, when you establish yourself, when you've had a successful business, when you have a series of successes or fortunate events, you're like, 'Fuck it. I don't need anyone's approval anymore,'" she says. "I know what I can do, I know my skill set, I know what I can achieve and accomplish."

The ambition hasn't gone anywhere—her approach has simply become more intentional. Kylie describes her 20s as the time to try everything, while her 30s are about "removing": old patterns, old thoughts, old people, and projects that no longer make sense.

"I've said no to so many things, but I like it," she says matter-of-factly. "I'm happy I get to choose the projects I hop on. So I'm very intentional about them."

For her, that freedom ultimately comes down to one thing: time. Her calendar dictates her weekdays between SOLA, &you, Almost Honest, shoots, content, and everything else, while weekends are for relationships. "I just want to be free," she says. "I want to own my time. I don't want to be on anyone else's time."

Even her approach to manifestation has become practical. She visualizes her goals, journals, and thinks about how she wants her day to go—but knows that wanting something is only half the equation. "You need to put in the work," she says. "It's a lot about saying yes and then just working towards it."

Kylie is the kind of person who gets excited by an idea—and then actually does something about it. SOLA started after she noticed a gap in the Philippine market for shapewear. Since then, it's grown into essentials, basics, and underwear, with more categories in the works.

"I wanted it to be a lifestyle brand," she says. "When it's SOLA, it's good quality. It's affordable. It's not intimidating. It's accessible and easy to wear."

Her other business, &you, came from a different observation—that healthcare in the Philippines could be easier to navigate. The platform connects users with doctors and FDA-prescribed medication online, with delivery straight to their doorstep. In both cases, Kylie saw an opening and figured out how she could fill it.

For Kylie, being in control doesn't mean having the final say on everything. She's particular, but not rigid; opinionated, but still open to other ideas. She's learned that having a vision and knowing when to let other people do what they do best can exist at the same time.

She sees that especially clearly as a founder. "The success of the business is not independent. It's not reliant on you but the whole team," she says. "It's a team sport."

That balance was easy to spot at the Almost Honest shoot a few days after our cover shoot. She was closely involved in the details—checking the lighting, thinking through her outfit, going over the questions she had prepared, and making sure the conversation flowed the way she wanted. (Even before the podcast shoot, she was already asking Executive Editor Ida Aldana, who would be her guest, specific questions about her background—well before they were actually sitting down to record.) She had a clear idea of what she wanted, but she was still working with the team to get there.

For all that preparation, though, Kylie wasn't always this confident about her place behind the mic.

"I don't know if I'm smart enough. Will people even listen to me?" she remembers thinking.

It was her fiancé who gave her the push she needed to finally go for it. She then spent two months training at home, practicing in front of a camera and wondering if they were ever actually going to launch.

What she wanted was simple: a space where smart, interesting people—especially women—could talk about what they know without answering the same questions they've been asked a hundred times before.

"I love talking to smart women," she says. "I feel like smart audiences are underserved in social media. So I want to bring smart people for them to be heard."

She learns from the conversations, too, debriefing after every episode and writing down what she took away. Among her dream guests are journalists like Maria Ressa and Karen Davila, whom she hopes to have "good, smart banter" with. The nerves may have come first, but they're clearly not stopping her now from dreaming of bigger and better.

For all the polish that comes with being a beauty queen, Kylie says people still sometimes assume she's stiff, difficult to approach, or "sosyal." She understands where the impression comes from. "I naturally have my walls up unless you kind of get to talk to me, then it's just down," she says. "But I feel like I'm easy to talk to. I'm a pretty open person."

She's also clearly having fun with finally getting her own Cosmo cover. Before the crown, the campaigns, and everything else, there was a teenage Kylie in Baguio picking up the magazine and reading the dating advice and immediately flipping to the back to read the confessions.

"I was shocked and also surprised by all the sex tips!" she says. Growing up in a conservative family in Baguio, sex wasn't exactly a dinner-table conversation. "For me to read all these sex tips and sex advice and relationships, I was like, 'Ah! What is this?'"

She also remembers the women on the covers: Anne Curtis, Isabelle Daza, all those "iconic girls" she saw in the magazine growing up. So when she finally got her own cover, ten years after winning Miss International in 2016, the timing wasn't lost on her.

"It took me 10 years!" she quips. "It only took 10 years, Cosmo, what's up!"

That playful side of Kylie is something BJ Pascual knows well. A longtime friend of Kylie's and the photographer of her Cosmo cover, he's seen plenty of her unguarded moments. In between layouts for the shoot, the lensman entertained us with stories from their recent trip to China. Away from the cameras and serious beauty queen mode, he says she's "so funny," often without meaning to be. "In her unguarded moments, sobrang lovable ng sabaw moments niya," he shares.

It's why BJ has a hard time reconciling the Kylie he sees with the very serious version of her on Almost Honest. "Sobrang serious ng podcast niya, but I keep saying na she should be in a reality show," he jokes. "Mag-PBB ka!"

The contrast is part of what makes Kylie so fun to watch. Her Instagram is polished because that's how she likes to show her life: beautiful clothes, beautiful places, carefully curated images. She loves fashion enough that her feed is basically an endless stream of clothes, shoes, vintage finds, and collections from Chanel, Dior, and Gucci.

But there's clearly another Kylie underneath all that polish—the one her friends get to see when she's not performing competence. In fact, she's still getting used to people clocking her as the funny one. "My friends are saying I'm funny. I'm like, 'Guys, I cannot be funny all the time!'" she quips.

The more people see the unguarded Kylie, the more they seem to recognize themselves in her. One of her favorite comments from a follower says it best: "Oh, I just realized she's also just a girl."

"Yeah," she says after taking a beat. "I'm just a girl trying my best."

For all the ambition in Kylie's life, she's not chasing some perfect version of it. She's engaged to the man of her dreams, building businesses, making a podcast she genuinely cares about, and still taking on acting and other projects—but when she talks about having it all, her answer is simple: She wants to be able to do what she wants with her time.

That freedom extends to love, too. Kylie has learned that a good relationship isn't supposed to feel like a roller coaster. It should feel peaceful. There should be growth, and both people should be moving forward together.

She likes the person she is in her relationship now: calmer, more secure, and able to let someone else take the lead every once in a while. "Honestly, my brain turns off when I'm with him," she says. "Which I kind of like because I feel like my whole life, I'm just 'on' the whole time."

It's a side of Kylie that doesn't always make it onto her polished Instagram grid. She describes herself as a total lover girl despite the cool-girl image—big on words of affirmation, physical touch, and spending time together. "I look like a cool girl but I'm like, 'Ew, [in reality,] I'm a princess," she says, laughing.

There's still plenty she wants to do. She wants to take SOLA and &you international, keep growing Almost Honest, get healthier, and build a wellness routine that gives her more space to enjoy her own life. She also wants to do everything she can before having kids.

But wanting more doesn't mean she's unsatisfied with where she is. If anything, Kylie has become better at holding ambition and gratitude at the same time.

"Because if you're not happy where you are, it's hard to get to where you wanna be."

Ten years after the crown, Kylie isn't trying to convince anyone that she belongs in the room anymore. She knows what she brings to it. She knows what she wants. And she finally has the freedom to decide what comes next.

Kylie has never been good at just choosing one thing. Why start now?

Executive Editor: Ida Aldana

Art Director: Ica Del Mundo

Editor-At-Large: Myrza Sison

Producer: Cheska Santiago

Asst. Managing Editor: Alyana Olivar

Social Media: Aina Lizarondo and Trixia Policarpio

Multimedia Producer: Julianna Gulapa

Video Director: Cherrie Julian

Videographer: Zelda Carreon, assisted by Danna Carreon

Video Editor: Olan Pingco

Cover Story Writer: Cheska Santiago

Photographer: BJ Pascual, assisted by Damian Estrella, Richard Detita, Jilmer Carlos, Abel Santos, and John Paul dela Cruz; special thanks to Pearl Acuesta, Angel Nadal, and Gels Mejia

Main Cover Makeup: Thazzia Falek, assisted by Kurt Borja

Cover Retouch Makeup Artist: Florence Vergara

Hairstylist: Renz Pangilinan

Stylist: Steven Coralde of Qurator, assisted by Charlotte Sombillo