Meet our Woman Crush for this week, Zainab O Sheriff.
A woman who has kept doing her best to see her passion get showcased, despite her bad press image, Zainab O Sheriff is a Sierra Leonean fashionista, model, actress, activist, singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur who was born on 22nd July 1985.
Zainab who has always wanted to be a model, grew up in the Eastern part of Freetown, started her her modelling career at age of 14 before relocating to Turkey to pursue her modeling career. After her relocation, her passion for modeling led her to work with designers such as Christian Louboutin, Cemil Ipekci, Arzu Kaprul, Marie Claire magazine, and many more.
After competing in 7th Season of the popular TV Show – Big Brother Africa in 2012, Zainab received continental fame in Africa. She later produced and acted in her first movie titled ‘Ghetto Queen’.
Zainab signed a record deal valued at 50 million Leones with Emmerson Bockarie’s Sugar Entertainment becoming the first female artist to be signed by the Sugar Entertainment company and later drop her debut single ‘Naugty’ in 2015 featuring Emerson Bockarie. In the same year, Zainab Sheriff was unveiled to be the new face of Ghanian fashion designer, Melanie Crane’s 2015 ‘BLUSAJUPE Collection’, a collection “represents the new African woman. A strong independent, self-motivating and high achieving woman from anywhere on the continent”
Zainab is the CEO of Zedzee Multimedia comprised of fashion and another entertainment line.
She is also the CEO of the first reality TV show in Sierra Leone ‘Big Sister Sierra Leone’ which was launched in 2018 in collaboration with Africell Sierra Leone and Africa Young Voices (AYV) TV bringing together 22 different women to show the world what they are capable of doing and as a way of empowering them. The Big Sister Sierra Leone Reality TV show season 2 featured women from different countries giving it more international viewership and recognition.