Josephine Joanna is redefining her path post-BBN, transitioning from reality star to a visionary in fashion, embracing creativity and self-expression.
When Josephine “Joanna” Jordan Iwoh first appeared on the reality television Big Brother Naija (BBN), she was 22, wide-eyed and willing to be seen. What she did not anticipate was that being seen by millions would become both a mirror and a magnifier. One that would reflect parts of herself she had yet to fully understand, and amplify the expectations of an audience who felt they knew her intimately.
Now, months after the cameras stopped rolling, Joanna is standing at the beginning of a new chapter. Here she is, making a deliberate move into fashion with an ambition that stretches far beyond simply posing for the lens.
In this exclusive interview, Joanna shares that she’s tired of playing it safe and doing what’s expected. She has dreams that stretch beyond reality TV, and for the first time, she’s chasing them loudly. This is an act of redefinition, one unfolding in full view of an audience that thinks it already knows her. But reinvention isn’t new to Joanna, and neither is fashion. Long before fame found her, fashion did. Now, she’s answering its call, not as the girl people watched on screen, but as the creator she’s always wanted to become.
The making of a fashion personality
Long before reality TV, 10-year-old Joanna was modelling for commercial brands, and it was an opportunity that she had before she understood it.
“I started modelling when I was barely 10 years old,” she recalls. “It was never something I thought I could do, but with time, I understood that it was part of self-expression for me.”
It began as commercial modelling, “just Pampers brands as a baby,” and has evolved into something far more detailed. Today, she describes herself as a “multifaceted fashion creator.” She explains that the ambiguity of the description is because she is someone less interested in fitting into boxes and more invested in breaking them apart.
“I’ve never been one to express myself in a box,” she says plainly. “I am very multi-dimensional.”
The distinction matters for her, especially in the fashion industry. These days, she has learned that commercial modelling pays the bills. But, in her view, editorial modelling feeds the soul.
“I want something that when you see it, you’re like, I understand the depth to this. I understand the creativity behind this,” she explains. “Outside societal criticisms and all of that.”
Although she has been doing a lot of paid gigs lately, she doesn’t see modelling as the only direction she wants to take in fashion. She is not interested in simply wearing clothes. She wants to build worlds around them.
Joanna resists being boxed into the narrow definition of an Instagram model or content creator. “I would describe myself as a very creative person mentally and socially,” she says. “Creativity does not conform to societal expectations. It conforms to how your mind works.”
She talks about fashion and colour combinations with the precision of a stylist, about lighting and dimensions with the curiosity of a photographer. She takes me down memory lane as she references secondary school, where she took courses in creative direction and photography.
“I just felt like it was a skill I needed to have an idea of,” she says. That instinct — to understand both sides of the lens — is shaping her next phase. While she loves being in front of the camera, she is open to stepping behind it.
“I’m definitely open to doing things like that,” she says of creative direction. “But I still need to sharpen those skills because it requires a lot of knowledge to execute themes properly.” She explains that it is about expanding her artistic language and claiming the right to be seen. As someone whose breakout into mainstream media was on reality TV, she is intrigued by life behind the scenes.
From being watched to creating the vision
Joanna entered reality television as a fan. “I just liked the idea that people could be vulnerable and be themselves on TV,” she says. Her audition, she admits, was “very careless” — not because she didn’t try, but because she never fully believed she would be chosen.
She was.
What followed was what she describes as both a blessing and a psychological experiment. “Reality TV is a societal experiment,” she explains.”You can understand how people see you and learn more about yourself.”
“I didn’t grow up to be the best at talking about how I feel,” she recalls. “I felt like if I just kept quiet, maybe things would be easier.” Inside the reality show’s house, that instinct was challenged daily. There were moments, she admits, when she felt she should allow herself to cry but resisted. Humour was her coping mechanism.
“I have this habit where when I feel like I’m feeling so much emotion, I want to laugh it off,” she jokes. “But I realised it was a coping mechanism, and it has never helped me.”
So she began to sit with her feelings instead. To cry when necessary. To accept that imperfection is not weakness.
“We glorify perfection so much that we forget we are actually living real life,” she says. “When you express how you feel, it doesn’t make you a terrible person.” This understanding now informs her creative ambitions. If fashion is about performance, she wants hers to be honest.
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Life after the reality TV show and rebranding in the public eye
The assumption that life gets magically perfect after reality TV is one Joanna rejects. “I haven’t completely adjusted, to be honest,” she expresses. “I’m still finding my footing.”
Joanna highlights that there is pressure to embody success, almost immediately. You have to look the part, dress the part, and spend like the part.
She recalls a recent moment in Abuja, when her mother referred to her as a celebrity. Later, she told her mother quietly, “You really don’t have to tell people I’m a celebrity because I genuinely don’t feel I am that yet.” She reaffirms that this belief is not out of insecurity, but out of clarity.
“To attain such a title, for me, it’s a call to duty. It reminds me how much work I still need to put into my craft.”
Joanna’s self-awareness feels refreshing. She acknowledges that overnight fame is often mistaken for lasting influence, and she has larger plans for herself. She views her journey as a lifelong “marathon,” and understands that there will be several challenges. Now, she is navigating one of her first.
Reinvention is difficult in private. It is even harder when thousands feel personally invested in who they think you are. Joanna is realistic about potential pushback. Some fans may prefer the version of her they met on television. Some may struggle to reconcile the housemate with the high-concept editorial muse. But she is focused and happy.
“The people who genuinely want to see different aspects of Josephine will stick around,” she says with so much optimism. “The right people will relate, and they will come around.”
She understands the internet and the media; she has seen that the community evolves. That audience shift. That authenticity is the only sustainable strategy. “I’m not so fixated on the people who might not receive the content,” she adds. “Rather, I’m fixated on the people who will actually love the content and begin to see me in a different light.”
If there is a phrase that encapsulates Joanna’s current mindset, it is this: doing it scared. “I entered the year nervous,” she admits. “If I don’t know the result, I panic.” But she is learning to embrace uncertainty to move forward despite fear.
“Doing it scared, doing it regardless of how I feel, is the bold step,” she affirms. “Nobody will believe in you as much as you believe in yourself.”
So she is challenging herself. In 2026, she plans to merge art with modelling, potentially launch part of her business, and explore exhibition–style creative projects that reveal new dimensions of her. She promises to be careful not to reveal too much; the art of mystery is lost these days, and she admits there is an allure to it.
Her ambition stretches beyond Nigeria. “I’m not looking at Nigeria alone. I’m looking at Africa as a continent,” she says. “To create a change as a whole, you need to set your own niche in whatever you are doing.”
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What’s next for Josephine Joanna Jordan
One of the most intriguing directions Joanna hints at is the fusion of fashion with architecture and art. “It really does interest me,” she says of architecture. “Art is actually the entire universe as a whole.”
For her, the relationship is intuitive; buildings and garments require technical drawings. Garments are mobile sculptures. Both rely on proportion, form, and emotion.
Joanna believes Africa’s editorial and art industries are only beginning to explore these intersections. “It’s been done, but we’re not so unique about it,” she says. “I feel like that’s because so many people aren’t doing it.”
Her solution is to start anyway. “When one person or a few people start doing something repeatedly, sometimes what seems unusual becomes very, very interesting,” she says.
She explains that the goal is immersive experiences — exhibitions that blend editorial modelling with architectural installations, colour studies, and emotional narratives. “Let people sit and feel like they’re connected to something,” she says. “Let people have nostalgia over a certain period in their life.”
Joanna is candid about where she stands in all of this, “I might just be a known person, a famous face,” she says carefully. There is no illusion of overnight mastery.
For Joanna, fashion does not feel like an aesthetic escape to success. It is a return to something she started long ago — a child in front of a camera, discovering that expression could be worn, posed, and projected.
Now, she is stepping back into that space with sharper vision. “I’m looking forward to unlocking so many other potentials of who I am that I never really knew existed,” she says.
At the end of our conversation, she shares something unexpectedly tender. As a child playing basketball in Benue, she once saw a girl featured in Marie Claire. She did not fully understand magazines then, but the image stayed with her.
“I feel like it’s so beautiful to see that I am actually having a conversation with you,” she says. “There was a time in my life when I manifested something without knowing.”
In a way, her reinvention, it seems, is not about becoming someone else. Joanna is no longer just the girl on our screens. She is creative in motion — nervous, reflective, ambitious, and unafraid to admit she is “still not there yet.”
But perhaps that honesty is the most compelling rebrand of all.
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