Angelica has spent much of her time hiring the right team to support her business, which she says is particularly difficult considering most people see “The Shade Room” as a blog rather than a business. Today, The Shade Room has an impressive 17.7m followers.

However, Angelica recalls that she “was about to get evicted so realised I needed to monetise the blog or get a job” she says and “I posted asking if any businesses would like to advertise for $75 on the platform and got multiple DMs”, “ultimately we monetised out of desperation and have never actively posted since then”. After some time, celebrities started following the account and the engagement built up to a point where she had 500,000 followers. She jokingly remembers that she would pull over on the freeway when a story broke to upload a post and ensure that she was first. She doubled down and spent hours staying on top of stories and posting on the blog.

Within ten days, she had 10,000 followers and knew that she was onto something. In the first post, she noticed her followers were commenting and tagging other people. Ironically the audience interpreted the tears as raw emotion and she was approached by Mic who offered Angelica a $5,000 grant to write a script “which was another sign from God this was the right path”. Angelica had a poetry recital later that day and broke down in tears during the performance. “I could not let this opportunity slip and decided to follow my dreams” Angelica says, although shortly after dismissing his warning, the reality of what she had committed to sank in and she was crushed. Partway through Sundance Labs, her boss called threatening to fire her if she didn’t return. She took a vacation from work during tax season, a notoriously busy period for accountants. To her surprise, Angelica’s script was accepted into Sundance Labs, an incubator programme for film scripts that worked with mentors such as Quentin Tarintino. It was a great opportunity for someone who had not written a script before, however “the story mimicked my life so well as it was about a girl who lost her mother through domestic violence, something I truly believe was a sign from God” she recalls. Struggling to motivate herself in her career, she decided to pursue writing again and an opportunity came up to write a script with Jordana Spiro.

Theshaderoom ig