Profile: ‘God told me to be famous at home’: Why one influencer walked away from YouTube at the height of her success

“I felt like God was saying, ‘You need to be famous at home. You don’t need to be famous on the internet. You need to be faithful in your home.’”

For an influencer whose career had been built on encouraging women online, walking away from the spotlight seemed like an extraordinary sacrifice. Yet for Nellah, it was simply the latest step in a journey of obedience that had begun years earlier, when a teenage girl walked into a prayer room at a Christian camp and encountered the Holy Spirit for the first time.

I met Nellah at the Premier studios in London. She had travelled down south by train, and although it was one of the hottest days of the year, she honestly radiated calm and kindness. As we settled into the podcast studio, Nellah explained that while her online platform had grown beyond anything she could have imagined, God had recently been teaching her that faithfulness is far more important than influence. To understand why she was willing to lay it all down, though, we had to go back to where it all began.

Nellah was born in Zimbabwe to Zimbabwean parents and spent the first nine years of her life there before moving to England. Although she has lived in Britain for most of her life, Zimbabwe remains central to her identity. She remembers an idyllic childhood.

“I had a simple 1990s childhood – out on the streets, climbing trees, walking to school and back. It was wonderful. I have really fond memories of my childhood. We’d go to the village to see my gogo and sekuru, as we call our grandparents, and it was just a really lovely childhood. My dad first moved to Scotland as a student. Then my mum moved as well, so for about five years my siblings and I lived with my aunt and uncle. That’s quite a common story for many families in the diaspora. Then, when I was nine, we all moved to England after my dad had finished studying and started working.”

Although Nellah faithfully attended church every weekend while growing up, her teenage years told a very different story.

Although Nellah faithfully attended church every weekend while growing up, her teenage years told a very different story. “I grew up in church with quite a strong Christian background. I believed in God and always had a relationship with Him, but throughout my teenage years I was really lost. I looked for my identity in so many different things, like boys or going out with my friends. It was quite a difficult time. I just thought, ‘As long as my academics are fine, I’m fine,’ because I thought that’s all my parents cared about. They just wanted me to become a doctor.”

Outwardly, she appeared to have everything together. Inwardly, however, she describes herself as living “a double life”.

“If I’m going to be quite vulnerable, I was in a strip club at 14. That’s how terrible the decisions I was making as a teenager were. I was drinking at a young age. I was into all the wrong things, and my friendship group wasn’t a great influence.

“But every single weekend I was still in church. I was part of the youth group because I knew it was the right thing to do. I knew my parents expected it, but I wasn’t living it.”

When Nellah was 17, her church organised a Bible retreat called Army Bible Camp, designed to help young people understand and defend their faith. “It was all about apologetics – knowing the Bible and being able to defend your faith. They had a 24-hour prayer room where you could just go in and out whenever you wanted. I went into that room, and I did not leave the same.

“I met Jesus. I met the Holy Spirit for the first time in that room, and I was just like, ’Wow, what is this?’ 

“I met Jesus. I met the Holy Spirit for the first time in that room, and I was just like, ’Wow, what is this?’ I’d grown up in the faith, but it had never happened before. I knew the faith in my mind. I’d never really had questions about Christianity intellectually. But that was the first time I met God through the Holy Spirit.

The transformation was immediate. “My family noticed straight away. I came back from camp and had zero desire to do any of the things I’d been doing before. Some people’s faith grows gradually, she says, but hers changed in an instant. Looking back 15 years later, she has never regretted surrendering her life to Christ. That encounter also planted two callings in her heart that would shape the rest of her life.

“There were two things I really felt God was telling me to do,” Nellah says. “The first was that I was going to teach and lead women in biblical womanhood and teach the Bible. The second was that I was going to impact people through their health. “I didn’t know what that meant. I just thought, ‘Well, I’ll become a doctor.’ The church background I come from takes health quite seriously – our bodies being the temple of the Holy Spirit and stewarding our health well. So I thought, ‘I’ll be a doctor and maybe go into medical missionary work one day.’”

The path wasn’t straightforward. “I didn’t actually do that well in my A-levels because I was having too much fun. So I studied Biomedical Sciences first because that gave me another route into medicine.” Even then, the door didn’t open immediately.

“I didn’t get into medical school the first time. But I remember thinking, ‘God, You told me I was supposed to do this, so how are we going to make this happen?’” Rather than seeing the setback as a closed door, Nellah looked elsewhere. “I knew a friend who’d applied to study medicine abroad. She’d got in with lower grades, so I applied too. I was accepted and moved to Lithuania for six years.”

Six years in Lithuania Studying medicine in Lithuania was never part of Nellah’s plan, but she now believes God was directing every step. “They taught in English, and it’s based on the UK curriculum, so academically it was brilliant. Those first two or three years were probably some of the most challenging of my life. My mental health really struggled. I remember coming home after my second year and saying to my mum, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t do it.’ It’s cold, it’s dark for months at a time, and that really affected me.”

“I’ve always had this burning desire to teach God’s Word. It’s the only way I can describe it. I’d literally be sitting at home thinking, ‘I need to hold a Bible study.’”

That desire had already surfaced while studying Biomedical Sciences at Bradford University. “I started a small Bible study in my house. Then, when I moved to Lithuania, I started another one there. Every single week we’d meet, and most of the people weren’t Christians. There would maybe be ten of us, and only two would actually be believers.” The confidence to lead others had begun soon after her conversion.

“After I gave my life to Jesus, I went on an evangelism training programme where we learned how to give Bible studies, how to disciple people and how to lead someone through the Christian faith. That’s where I met my husband.” While leading Bible studies in person, Nellah sensed another nudge from God – this time to step into the online world.

 “God actually told me to preach the gospel on YouTube, but I was too nervous. So I just did videos about hair and make-up instead.”

“I’ve always been creative,” she says. “I needed a creative outlet, and I used to watch all these girls on YouTube doing hair, make-up and lifestyle videos. I really felt called to start a YouTube channel.” Initially, however, she ignored what she believed God was asking her to do. “God actually told me to preach the gospel on YouTube, but I was too nervous. So I just did videos about hair and make-up instead.”

The results were underwhelming. “I think I did that for about a year and maybe had 500 followers.” Then came a gentle conviction. “I really felt God saying, ‘I told you what to do.’” So she took a deep breath and began talking openly about her faith. “I started sharing my faith on YouTube, my journey through medical school and what God was teaching me. That was when everything changed.”

Almost overnight, people began responding. “It completely blew up. God was basically saying, ‘You should have just done what I told you to do!’” She believes people were drawn to the authenticity. “I think people wanted authenticity. They wanted to hear about faith alongside everyday life. I wasn’t trying to be someone else anymore.”

Openly sharing her Christian faith while training as a doctor might sound intimidating, but Nellah says she has rarely encountered hostility. If there was tension, she says, it usually came from the assumption that science and faith cannot coexist. “I think the biggest challenge has been sharing my faith in medical settings, where people sometimes assume that because you’re a scientist you can’t possibly believe the Bible.”

As Nellah’s audience continued to grow, opportunities opened that she never could have planned. Throughout her years on YouTube, she successfully applied for several creator programmes and grants designed to help emerging digital storytellers. “YouTube has actually been incredibly supportive of creators. They have different programmes that you can apply for.”

One of the biggest came in 2018. “I was selected for YouTube’s ‘Next Up: Women to Watch’. There were 20 women chosen from across Europe who YouTube believed were the next generation of creators. At the time I was broke!” she laughs. “They gave us funding to buy cameras and equipment that I’m actually still using today.” Later, another grant from YouTube’s Black Creators Fund enabled Nellah and her husband to work in content creation full-time for two years.

“I’ve never really thought about it like this before, but I do think it was God’s favour. When God opens a door, He really opens it. I’m not saying everything is always easy, but when God has called you somewhere, He makes a way. He opens the doors that no one else can open.”

Long before Biblical Boss Babe became an established online ministry, the idea first came to Nellah in a dream.

Long before Biblical Boss Babe became an established online ministry, the idea first came to Nellah in a dream.

“During Covid, I had a dream,” she says. “It was quite a long dream, but essentially it was about me leading women and teaching them about Jesus, particularly around the Proverbs 31 woman. I have a lot of dreams, and sometimes I don’t know whether it’s just a pizza dream or whether it’s actually from God! So I always sit with it, pray about it and wait.” Then someone else approached her with an extraordinary story.

“They told me they’d had a dream about me without knowing anything about mine. They described me standing on a stage leading women who were all dressed in white.”

For Nellah, it felt like the confirmation she had been waiting for. “I thought, ‘Okay, Lord, I think You’re saying something here.’” In July 2020, during the Covid pandemic, she launched Biblical Boss Babe. “I honestly thought that if 100 women followed the page, that would be amazing.” God had much bigger plans.

“Within a month, 5,000 women had followed the page.” The response astonished her. “I also had about 500 women join online Bible studies in that first month.” Managing such rapid growth was a challenge. “It was just me! This was before AI or anything like that. I had these massive Excel spreadsheets, trying to work out where everyone lived so I could put women into groups of three to five who lived near each other.”

She also wrote an entire discipleship course from scratch. “I created a ten-week Bible study and we worked through it together.” Before long, women from around the world were joining the ministry. By 2022, Nellah’s online ministry was flourishing. “I got pregnant with Zion, which was probably at the height of my YouTube career. I took about eight months’ maternity leave and then went straight into work as a doctor for the first time.”

The family moved to Scotland for her NHS job, where they lived for two years before welcoming their daughter, Zara.

“We’ve now moved back to England because my contract finished and we wanted to be closer to family. When I had the children, YouTube naturally slowed down. But by that point I’d already started Biblical Boss Babe, so my focus shifted more towards the ministry and creating content on Instagram.” Then, just as everything seemed to be thriving, God asked her to do something she never expected.

“He told me to lay it all down.”

The decision wasn’t prompted by burnout or scandal. In many ways, life was going well. “There wasn’t actually anything wrong,” Nellah reflects. “I wasn’t being unfaithful in what I was doing. But I just felt a really strong calling from God to stop, to be quiet.” Around the same time, she listened to a sermon by Francis Chan that deeply challenged her. It was about leading a quiet life, and it echoed what she already sensed God was saying.

“I already felt like God had been speaking to me because social media had started to feel a little bit performative. Everything I was sharing was real, but sometimes it wasn’t the whole picture. “I might be baking sourdough or doing all these lovely things, and yes, I really was doing them, but life didn’t always look that beautiful.”

Then came the words she says she will never forget. “I felt like God said, ’You need to be famous at home. You don’t need to be famous on the internet. You need to be faithful in your home. Be quiet. Live a quiet life. Mind your own business. Do your good works.’” So she stepped away. “I thought at first it might be for three years. But I told the Lord that however long He wanted me offline, even if it was forever, that was okay.”

Walking away from a successful online platform wasn’t just emotionally costly. It affected the family’s finances too.

Walking away from a successful online platform wasn’t just emotionally costly. It affected the family’s finances too. “You earn a good living from social media. It really had replaced both of our incomes for a long time.” By then, however, Nellah had returned to working as an NHS doctor while her husband stayed at home with their son.

“My husband stayed at home with Zion and I went back to work as a doctor. We had a little bit of savings, so financially we could manage, but it was definitely a big adjustment.” Even so, she says the peace that came from obedience far outweighed the sacrifice. “It was rough going from that level of income to almost nothing, but I couldn’t explain the peace.”

Looking back now, she believes stepping away from the spotlight became one of the most important spiritual lessons of her life. “It was honestly the best thing I ever did.” Unlike online audiences, children rarely applaud the unseen sacrifices of motherhood. “They’re not saying, ‘Thank you so much for my breakfast! You’re amazing!’” During that hidden season, Nellah found her relationship with God deepening in ways that public ministry never could.

“It reminded me what really matters. Everything has to overflow from my communion with God. I can’t teach people from an empty cup. Whether it’s ministry or content creation, it has to come from time spent with Jesus. I have around 100,000 followers across social media. That’s nothing compared to people with millions. But even then, you have to ask yourself: what’s the point of all this? It’s not about me. It’s about Jesus. When the Bible says, ‘Let people see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven,’ that’s what I want.

“If people see me, I want them to glorify God. I don’t want them to say, ‘Oh, Nellah’s amazing.’ I want them to see Jesus.” The months spent out of the public eye also forced her to confront a searching question. “If you don’t have all the followers, if people stop telling you you’re amazing or saying they want to be like you, are you still okay? I think God wanted me to answer that question in my own heart first.”

It is a lesson that now underpins everything she teaches through Biblical Boss Babe: before seeking influence in the world, seek faithfulness at home.