One of the most prominent Instagram gossip accounts is The Shade Room (@theshaderoominc). Notwithstanding this popularity, its CEO, Angelica “Angie” Nwandu has remained behind-the-scenes. The story of this woman is a peculiar and inspirational one from which everyone can learn.
According to Buzzfeed, Angie Nwandu’s parents emigrated from Nigeria to the United States in the late 1980s; they later gave birth to Angie in 1989. Angie’s parents were in a violent relationship. Sadly, Mr. Nwandu murdered his wife and was sentenced to 28 years to life in prison in 2002. With no immediate family left to live with, Angie and her four sisters were incorporated into the Los Angeles foster care system. Angie claimed to have been abused verbally, mentally and sexually.
One would believe a girl having experienced such complication at an early age will grow up to become a delinquent but Angie stood out. At 13, she was enrolled in a program for foster children called Peace for Kids. It was here she developed her talent in poetry. According to the executive director of Peace for Kids, Zaid Gayle, Angie was the best poet the program had ever worked with.
Watch her perform the poem, Behind Bullet Proof Glass, written about domestic violence and how it occurred between her father and late mother.
After receiving a full scholarship, Angie graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 2012 and went on to work as an accountant for a motorcycle company which stopped paying her after a while. By March 2014, Angie was without a job and left with nothing to do, she began posting gossip on celebs with the user name The Shade Room, capturing which celeb followed who, which celeb liked what on Instagram, filling in dotted lines and giving exclusives while top gossip sites like TMZ and others were still speculating.
According to Zaid Gayle, Angie was embarrassed about The Shade Room when she started because she didn’t think it was writing to be proud of.
From the onset of The Shade Room, Angie did well to avoid using her last name as she was worried what her father would think. Understanding what being in the limelight entailed, she was uncomfortable with releasing information about her background. She wasn’t ready to tell her story until December 2015 when Buzzfeed culture writer, Doree Shafrir interviewed her.
It was in this Buzzfeed interview that it was revealed that The Shade Room had “4 full-time staff; 20 interns who go to events and keep an ear to the ground in Atlanta, Miami, New York, and Los Angeles; and a fast growing army of readers they call “Roommates”- who also regularly submit news and gossip tips”.
Angie’s interview with Buzzfeed has positioned her on the centre stage. On December 22, 2015, Angelica was listed in Techcrunch’s 18 Female Founders Who Killed It In 2015. Later, she was placed on Forbes’ 30 Under 30.
Today, Angelica Nwandu had built a community of ardent followers and The Shade Room is fast growing into a media company.
According to Buzzfeed, Angie believes that she was one of the 6% of foster kids to graduate from college because she is Nigerian.
“Nigerians are some of the most successful immigrants in America,” she said. “And so when I would go to class, people would say, ‘Oh, you’re Nigerian,’ so they would expect me to be smart. Somebody expected something from me.”
Photo Credit
Buzzfeed
Forbes
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