The former ‘Basketball Wives: LA’ star turned actress is ready to explode.
She had her break with Basketball Wives: LAbut model/actress Draya Michele was never a basketball player’s wife.
“basketball wives probably wasn’t the best solution for me, but I did what I had to do. This show launched my career. The swimwear line took off from there and I ended up quitting reality TV. The swimsuit business was very successful and that was kind of all I needed at the time,” Draya tells us about her departure from the show after the fourth season.
The swimsuit in question is Mint Swim, a line she has been designing and marketing since 2011. Two years later, she launched her lifestyle clothing line Fine Ass Girls, followed by another clothing line in 2016, Beige & Coco, for sophisticated women. (Keep an eye out for Michele’s exclusive collaboration with celebrity-loved label Femme, out Aug. 30.)
“I design everything myself, but I’m exploring the idea of hiring a team of designers to try to relieve me and also to refresh the brand and give it a facelift and a bit of a youthful look,” she says. , emphasizing how important it is to give the next generation a chance.
“I believe in going back down the elevator for young female and male designers who are like me, who just need an opportunity and that one thing to catapult their careers.”
So, yes, she’s gorgeous, generous and crushing it in a bikini, but Draya is so much more. She’s a businesswoman who builds her clothing lines from the ground up with nothing but grit, determination and 9 million Instagram followers, plus over 650,000 on Twitter.
“It’s very, very difficult,” she says of launching her clothing lines. “However, I had an advantage because I was on TV. Being on TV, I built up a social media following which is extremely helpful in selling any type of product. I was able to manage both a social media presence and a brand, and they sort of helped each other out, but it was very difficult, although I struggled a bit more than other brand executives and entrepreneurs.
Draya grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania, the daughter of an Italian mother and an African American father. Fascinated by skincare, she took esthetician lessons at an early age before moving to Los Angeles to start a career as a model, actress, designer and influencer. She built her following by appearing in music videos for artists like Kanye West, Fabolous, Quavo, Don Toliver and Jay-Z.
“I like handsome, smart men,” she admits. “My man right now” – Super Bowl XLVII champion and New York Giants quarterback Tyrod Taylor – “is super smart and super outgoing and he can dance and he has an awesome smile and a hot body. And that’s what I like about him.”
Taylor lives in New York while Draya lives in Los Angeles where she is pursuing the next phase of her career: acting. She has appeared on many TV shows like Fox’s The best of LA with Jessica Alba and Gabrielle Union, and Fox’s Star in which she plays social media influencer Chloe David.
“I got my feet wet as an actress and I’m really, really having fun in this space,” she says. Look for her this Christmas in the BET+ musical, Sound of Christmas with Ne-Yo. But between acting, modeling and building her brand, all she really wants is to go home.
“When I’m not working, I like to be at home and spend time with my children. I’m definitely a mom,” she said with a firm nod. “But you can add that I’m a hot mom.” So we did, although the pictures say it all.
Tags: actors actresses Draya Michele Entertainment Influencers instagram sexy models Women
