Angelica Nwandu
American journalist and screenwriter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Angelica Nwandu (born May 10, 1989)[1][2] is an American media personality. She the founder of the Shade Room, an Instagram-based media company focused on celebrity gossip. Nwandu was dubbed "The Oprah of [her] generation" by Refinery29[3] and a "celebrity culture savant" by Complex. Time magazine named TSR in the 30 most influential on the internet in 2016. The New York Times called the Shade Room "Instagram's TMZ".[4]
Angelica Nwandu | |
|---|---|
Nwandu in 2020 | |
| Born | May 10, 1989 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Media personality |
| Years active | 2014–present |
Early life and education
Angelica Nwandu was born in 1989 in Los Angeles, California, to Nigerian parents.[5][6] In a November 2025 interview with Proximity Media, she revealed that her father murdered her mother when she was six years old. Subsequently, Nwandu grew up in foster care.[7] She graduated from Loyola Marymount University.[8]
Career
The Shade Room
In 2016, Forbes named Nwandu to its 30 Under 30 list, saying she "revolutionized celebrity gossip" with the founding of the Shade Room.[9] Cosmopolitan reports that the Shade Room's followers across platforms now total more than eight million people.[10] TechCrunch named her to its list of "18 Female Founders Who Killed It in 2015"[11] and BuzzFeed says Nwandu is "figuring things out faster than everyone else."[12]
Film
Nwandu has also been a Sundance fellow and Time Warner HBO fellow 2014[13] selected for the January 2014 Screenwriters Lab.[14] The project, developed with co-writer Jordana Spiro, is called Night Comes On. It premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival where it won the NEXT Innovator award.[15] Samuel Goldwyn Films acquired the film for distribution, with a simultaneous theatrical and VOD release set for August 3, 2018.[16]