She Entered Her 40s as a Widow; Now She's Planning a Wedding

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A Journey of Grief, Growth, and Self-Discovery

Bozoma Saint John’s 40s began with heartbreak. Her husband had passed away from cancer, and she had moved from New York to Los Angeles chasing a corporate dream that suddenly felt empty. “I started the decade in deep grief,” Saint John, now 48, recalls. She was navigating the loneliness of moving to a new city with her young daughter while trying to hold everything together. But amid the darkness, she found a new kind of strength. “I have proven to myself that I am independent, that I am capable, that I am powerful.”

Saint John has built an impressive career, holding top roles at PepsiCo, Apple Music, Uber, and Netflix. She is often the first Black woman or one of the few to occupy those executive positions. A business powerhouse, she is in the Marketing Hall of Fame, the author of The Urgent Life, and a reality TV personality on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and NBC’s On Brand With Jimmy Fallon.

“I'm a student of life, and so I never want to be in a position where I feel like I've done it all and I'm finished,” Saint John says. “As soon as I felt like OK, I've gotten the accolades, I've done what I can do in corporate life, I looked around to see what else I can do, how else I can expand, how else I can grow.” Stepping in front of the camera as a housewife was completely unknown to her, but being vulnerable and open about her personal life became a new avenue for growth.

She speaks about her journey as a widow and mother, navigating motherhood and ongoing grief while embracing a new romantic relationship and the possibility of expanding her family. Here, she reflects on how this has impacted her relationship with her 16-year-old daughter, Lael. She also shares how she has become a woman unafraid to take up space in sequins and stilettos.

Confidence Built Through Experience

Off the bat, I have to say, you exude a ton of confidence that seems to come to you so naturally. Is that true?

It has really been a confidence builder, this decade. My self-confidence comes from a varying array of experiences. I am very confident in the way that I do corporate work, in that I know I'm one of the best marketers in the world. I'm in the Marketing Hall of Fame. But I can probably assure you that every mother on the planet is constantly learning every day. So how I mother today, am I confident in it? Probably not. I'm always questioning myself. Did I say the right thing? Did I encourage her the right way? Am I making sure that she's going to be the most amazing woman in the future?

So there are varying degrees to my confidence, but I feel like every day I wake up, I put in my best effort. And if I can do that, then I feel good.

Owning Success and Identity

I love the way that you speak about your work. Has it ever been difficult to own how good you are at something?

Claiming what I am and who I am, how good I am at something or whatever identities I have has come out of experience. I can make claims because they're true, and that is something that I don't back down from. You can decide you don't like me; you can decide that you don't want to spend time with me; you can decide that I dress badly. You can decide whatever you want. What you cannot decide on, though, is the proof in the receipts, because I have them. And so I stand very firmly in that. For me, it's like there's no arguing when it's in black and white. Sure, you can have a subjective opinion, but there's nothing subjective about the career I've had or the wins I've had. So I feel very confident, I stand clearly in that, and I feel no problem with talking about it that way.

Style as a Form of Empowerment

Your résumé does all the talking. And, honestly, so do your looks. How has your style translated as a business exec?

Early on in my career, I was like everybody else who just wanted to fit in. I looked up at the corner office and I said, OK, what do they look like over there? They're wearing gray suits. Their hair is pulled back. There is no to little makeup, nobody's got their nails done — and I tried to do that. There was a very painful time in my career where I got a review that I thought I didn't deserve. And some of the review was about how I appeared and how I talk. It was so painful to me because I was like, Man, I'm trying to fit into this mold that you've created, and I'm still not good enough.

This, what you see, was born out of failure. I woke up one day and I said, You know what? If the gray suit and the pulled-back hair and the short, nubby nails aren't going to get me to the corner office, I might as well just be who I am. The incredible thing is that just unleashing all of that with my creativity and my fabulosity and walking into rooms and feeling beautiful and confident completely changed the way that people interact with me. That's why, even as someone who hadn't yet gone into the corner office, I was still looking like this. I showed up every day [looking] fly, because that's the way I knew to make myself feel good.

Embracing Authenticity

You didn’t get any pushback to that?

What happened subconsciously is that it allowed me to be even more confident as I walked into rooms. That's why when people say, Oh, that's superficial. Why are we talking about fashion? Why are we talking about beauty as it relates to corporate? I'm like, no, that became my armor and not just my armor, but it also allowed me freedom so that everything that I felt, all the ways that I wanted to be creative and fabulous, came out because I was. So I don't hold that back at all. And thank God, it's been like 20 years of this fabulosity. And [to] everyone I've ever interacted with in a boardroom … you're welcome.

Balancing Personal and Professional Life

That perspective makes for a really great Bravo Housewife, I’ve got to say.

I admit it 100%, I love some glam. I like to look good. It's not just about the accolades on the wall behind me or the awards I've won. But I also want to keep my health going. I also want to look nice when I'm dressed. I am still learning in that capacity, how to do that and how to be in front of the camera so that I can showcase everything that there is to showcase and deliver in that arena. But for me, it's like I feel very good in what I'm doing because I know it's the path for me. If I didn't feel good about it, I wouldn't be doing it.

Navigating Relationships in Your 40s

One of the things that you’ve been so open about on RHOBH is your relationship with your now-fiancé, Keeley Watson. Congratulations on your engagement, by the way. What have you learned about entering a relationship in your 40s?

It's so interesting to create a new relationship and way of being in my 40s — in my late 40s at that — than it has been in the past. I'm coming with a rich knowledge of who I am, what I want, what I don't want, and it's just a different feeling. I'm really thankful that my fiancé, Keely, is also mature in his life, in that he also comes with expectations, given the relationships he's been in in the past. It’s a really beautiful time to be able to meet someone and have similar tastes, similar ambitions, similar ways of looking at the world and then try to figure out how do we do this together, having been so independent.

Building a Strong Relationship with Her Daughter

And you have a really close relationship with your daughter. Where does she fit into that?

My daughter has had just me for the majority of her life, and so she doesn't know me as a wife. She doesn't know me as a partner to anyone. So I hope that what she is learning from me right now is that it is never too late to be hopeful for love, for vulnerability, for learning, for sharing. That as she sees my relationship with Keeley grow and develop, she's also understanding that you can really see the depths of life and be hurt by it but also still have great hope and still have an open heart and really be joyous in love and in your life.

I let her see my tears. I was never that mother that hid it from her. I want her to know the woman who is raising her. So she has seen the tears. She has seen the fear. She's seen the jubilation at big jobs. She saw me in my vulnerability, in my relationship with Keeley. So I hope what she's taking from me is that you can be a whole woman, that there's no part of you that has to be cut off. You can be courageous and independent and loving and soft and strong and all of those adjectives.