Bozoma Saint John talks Vikings, reality TV faves and life while filming 'RHOBH'
Marketing titan and former Apple and Netflix exec Bozoma Saint John is set to take her talents to the TV screen.
The businesswoman is set to make her cast debut on "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" this fall, where a new audience will get to see the woman who has made a name for herself in tech and media spaces in a new way.
"I don't necessarily want to go back to the corporate world. I want to create for myself."
The move to reality TV seems like a good fit for Saint John, 47, who is a fan of the genre and calls fellow Bravo stars friends.
Now bridging on a new chapter, Saint John reflects on the habits and essentials that have made her successful, her love of Vikings and reality TV and the life lessons she has learned out of tragedy.
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Bozoma Saint John protects her peace with 5:30 a.m. 'quiet hour'
"What typical day?" Saint John muses.
She's a trained early bird, she says, and wakes up at 5:30 a.m. every morning. The businesswoman is also about protecting her peace, and while she admits her new stint on "RHOBH" has thrown her schedule a bit off center, her morning routine remains unchanged.
"I like to spend the first hour of the day, not on my phone, not plugged in," the former Apple Music head of global consumer marketing says. "If I wake up at 6:30 or 7, then the emails are blowing up and all the things. But 5:30 is such a quiet hour, very little stirring."
Her daily routine also includes at least a gallon of water and an early strength training workout — or rather, battle — with her trainer every day but Sunday. "Every day we post us fighting," she says. "He gets very upset with me about not doing what he's telling me to do, even though I pay him to train me.
"After that, I have a series of meetings. They can range from what I would call my counseling sessions (to) a different kind of counseling I call 'brand counseling.' Because, as you can imagine, I get texts, emails, messenger pigeons. People are like, 'Can I pick your brain?'"
She also makes sure to shut her work day down by 6 p.m. promptly so she can spend time with her daughter, Lael. Saint John's husband, Peter Saint John, died of cancer in 2013, and she has made this routine a priority ever since.
"I started this practice when I became a single mom," she says. "And even though I was very committed and ambitious to my corporate job and my career, I knew that I absolutely needed to carve out time (with her)."
After that, it's a strict 9:30 p.m. bedtime: "Don't try to call me either," she quips. "I won't answer."
Bozoma Saint John loves Vikings and historical fiction
You could call it a guilty pleasure, as Saint John hesitantly admits to being into Vikings, "Mary, Called Magdalene" author Margaret George and historical fiction tomes.
"I'm out here a fan of Ragnar (Lothbrok). I am almost always reading historical fiction. If you've never read Margaret George, you should really try. She has this amazing book on Cleopatra. All her books are like, 700 pages. You really commit.
"She gives it to you from a perspective that's just like, 'Oh, my God, I didn't know Cleopatra from this perspective,'" she says. "Honestly, I'm obsessed."
'Selling Sunset' and 'Love is Blind' are Bozoma Saint John's reality TV faves
Saint John finds balance in loving both 700-page novels and reality TV: "I've never been ashamed of my love of TV."
She recalls her "dream job" as Netflix's chief marketing officer when "Selling Sunset," "Love is Blind" and "Bling Empire" were among her favorite watches.
The soon-to-be Bravo star has love for the home network, too. She regularly watches "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," "Married to Medicine" and other shows where friends like Cynthia Bailey and Quad Webb have been cast members.
"It's also fun to watch them on their shows because clearly, I know them in real life. The only thing that is funny is that if they are in an argument, or I feel like somebody's ganging up on them, the hard part is like, 'Aw man, if I'd been in that room…'"
Bozoma Saint John's memoir writing tips, life lessons
Saint John took two years to write her 2023 debut memoir, "The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival," about her experience with grief and moving through life and her career with courage and purpose.
The self-described procrastinator said a set writing schedule was key to finishing her book.
"Every Saturday, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., I write. And that, I'm telling you, (is) rain, shine, birthday, Christmas. It didn't matter what day it was."
She writes about her college boyfriend's suicide, losing a child prematurely and navigating the relationship with her husband after his terminal diagnosis. His death prompted Saint John to move with a new level of determination.
"To me, the urgency wasn't about time necessarily. It was more like the intention of action," she says. "I read this quote by Diane Ackerman many years ago. She says, 'I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it.'"
She says life doesn't have to be all "big moments" but rather "enjoy(ing) the journey."
"Why would we be afraid of the end of life if you had been living the whole length of the life? That, for me, has become the way of being, and not just a quote in somebody's book."