Angelica Nwandu is the owner of The Shade Room, a successful US-based digital media company that reports about celebrity gossip and news.
Dubbed the Oprah of her generation, the company, which started as an Instagram page, has grown to become a dominant force in the entertainment industry.
Here’s all you need to know about her:
1. Angelica Nwandu was born on May 10, 1989, in Los Angeles, United States of America, to Nigerian parents.
2. She lost her mother due to domestic violence caused by her father when she was six years old. She and her four sisters were taken to foster care, where she spent most of her childhood.
3. She attended a programme called Peace for Kids, which helps foster kids let out their anger. She joined the poetry programme to use her writing skills to express her feelings, especially the pains that haunted her from the past.
4. She studied accounting and human resources at Loyola Marymount University on a full scholarship.
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5. It was after two years of her accounting job that she told Zaid Gayle, her mentor from Peace for Kids, that she hated her job and wanted to write.
6. Her breakthrough moment came when she had the opportunity to work with Zaid Jordana Spiro, a screenwriter on a story similar to that of her personal experiences titled ‘Night Comes On.’ Angelica’s script was accepted into Sundance Labs, an incubator programme for film scripts. Michelle Satter, director of the Sundance Institute, offered her a $5,000 grant for her writing.
7. Angelica conceived the idea of starting a blog after her finances had dried up and she had decided to pursue writing full-time. She started The Shade Room as an Instagram page in March 2014, where she shared news and gossip about celebrities. Within ten days, she had 10,000 followers and knew that she was onto something.
8. She employs paparazzi who are everywhere taking photographs of interesting events and situations in the lives of celebrities.
9. Angelica created the Roommates community to engage her followers, and so that they can ‘be part of something’.
10. Angelica says she does not go on vacation. She is passionate about what she does and cannot afford for The Shade Room to go down.
11. Angelica says she definitely wants to fall in love and have a family, but she wants to make her dreams come true first.
