Bozoma Saint John was a newbie on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season 14, but she didn't shy away from speaking her mind. Often referencing her success as a communicator in the boardroom, the marketing exec was able to translate her business skills to navigating a dramatic group of reality TV pros. But Saint John wasn't only speaking with her voice on her first season—she was also communicating with her clothes.
On the latest episode of the Marie Claire podcast "Nice Talk," Saint John opens up about her decision to wear exclusively Black designers on RHOBH, and why she plans to keep this up for the next season.
According to Saint John, wearing only Black brands wasn't initially her plan, but it fell into place after she attended the first event of the season: a surrealism-themed party thrown by castmate Sutton Stracke.
"I partnered with one of my favorite designers, Mimmy Yeboah, who is Ghanaian. She does couture. I've worked with her numerous times, and she made me this extravagant confection of a cape, which was all roses, and it's this off-white and structured body of a dress. I mean, it was just spectacular," Saint John explains. "When I wore it, I knew the significance of wearing her and what that would signal."
At that point, Saint John recognized her mission. She teamed up with Yeboah again for the season's promotional photos, and they drew inspiration from legendary Black designer Zelda Wynn Valdes for her gown.
"After that, I was like, Well, I can't go backwards," Saint John says. "So I just started pulling things out of my closet that were Black designers." From there, she got help from a stylist friend, who helped assemble her outfits for the rest of the season. "The entire season, 53 looks were all Black—every single thing that I wore."
She will keep this up for her sophomore season. "Fashion is such an important topic on this show, right?" the business executive explains. "I'm like, Okay, well, if everybody has a thing, then why can't my thing be Black?"
On "Nice Talk," Saint John also talks about her career before joining Housewives full-time in 2024, including how she and Beyoncé impacted each other's careers.
Saint John, who has held executive-level positions at brands like Netflix, Uber, and Apple Music, worked as an assistant at Spike Lee's advertising agency Spike DDB early on in her career. On the podcast, she recalls suggesting Queen Bey should be the star of a campaign the agency was working on for Pepsi. That kicked off a lengthy collaboration between the soda brand and the pop icon.
Years later, the RHOBH star worked with Beyoncé again for her 2013 Super Bowl Halftime Show—this time, with Saint John as the head of music and entertainment marketing at PepsiCo, the event sponsor.
Saint John shares more about her various professional endeavors, pivoting to reality TV, her new show with Jimmy Fallon, On Brand, and more on this week's installment of "Nice Talk." The episode is available everywhere you listen to podcasts.
