Born and raised in a Catholic family from Imo State, Nigeria. While studying English language at the University of Lagos, she had part-time jobs as a waitress, model and writerSeptember 19, 1980. An indigene of Nkwerre L.G.A. in Imo State, Nigeria. She was born into a family with a really humble background, and is the second of seven children. She was raised in a Christian catholic home as well.
At a very tender age of 10 years, Linda began a hobby of writing. The fiction she wrote were commended by her family and friends. As time went by she developed a passion for news. Different from most teenagers her age, Linda Ikeji cherished listening to news, watching newscasters and interviews, and when the chance came to study at the University in Lagos, she chose into Mass Communication.
However, to her disappointment, she was admitted to study English Language. To support herself through school and reduce burden on her family, Linda started working at age 17, doing anything from being a waitress, ushering in occasions to modeling and bar-tending. Anyway, none of these paid much back then in the late 90′s. She began the modeling career in 1998 and gave up in 2005. She was also a fashion columnist for a struggling celebrity magazine, and after two years of toiling in the news room, she gave up that too.
She came into entertainment as a determined model while studying in Unilag. Linda modeled for numerous brands, like the ‘Rose of Sharon’ label, owned by former President of the Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria (FADAN) and Nigerian billionaire and oil mogul, Folorunsho Alakija, and in some of the most fascinating fashion shows in the country back then. She was at ECOFEST and has also done some outdoor advertisements.
She said: “I’d run off from lectures to a hotel and sell beer from 1 pm until 10 pm. I did this for a few months. It wasn’t easy at all, but I had to survive”.
In the year 2004, after she had concluded her University education, she labored so hard to crack into the Journalism trade, by introducing her media company, called Black dove Communications, which was a modeling agency and events management outfit. The name Black dove was however inspired by Silverbird, which happens to be a name and also a bird. It was also inspired by the fact that her best colour is black and beloved bird is the dove.
Linda Ikeji remained within her walls of comfort zone which was modeling, so instead of being in front of the camera, she chose to be behind camera by managing an agency, signing up models, training them and getting them jobs. Although Linda claims to still have the modeling agency, but not managed by her anymore. She also commenced what she tells in her earliest blog post as her “true passion”, her magazine called, FM & B. The first issue was published in the 2006 and on realizing how expensive and stressful magazine publishing was, she only had two more editions printed.
The blogging episode started in 2006. Luckily, in that same year, Bella Naija, another very popular Nigerian blog, posted a story about Linda and for the first time, Linda started to see a new opportunity to take her writing to the world.
Linda Ikeji began blogging in full in 2007 to share stuffs that fascinated her with her readers. About five years afterward, her blog, Linda Ikeji Blog has developed into one of the most visited blogs in the country. Thousands trooped into her site on a daily basis for news, entertainment, celebrity gist, gossip and lots more.
She said: “I was receiving like 200 visits a daily and for me back then, it was a great deal, sincerely. Now I’m receiving like 50,000 visits daily from about 180 countries around the world.”
It took Linda Ifeoma Ikeji about four whole years of dedication to start making good cash from her blogging career.
She said: “I never for once even thought that I could make money from blogging. I didn’t begin blogging with the frame of mind that some day I would really make money from it. As a matter of fact, it never even crossed my mind. I never said to myself that, OK let me start blogging now and maybe in five years time, I would begin to see the dividends.
I never anticipated that it would ever happen at all. In 2008, 2009, I was placing free ads on my blog, I was the one asking my blog readers to please give me their ads to place in my blog for them free of charge. Now in 2010, people began asking me about my advert rates and I was like ‘seriously?’ I didn’t even understand what it was not until I asked a few persons and they told me their own advert rates, so was how it all started for me.”
So far Linda Ikeji has purchased two brand new cars, her dream car, which is a 2008 Toyota Camry that she bought about in 2011.
Lindaikeji blog
After graduation, Ikeji started blogging in 2006 on the Blogger platform.
Controversies
Ikeji has dealt with controversial posts about celebrities such as Funke Akindele, Richard Mofe Damijo, Djimon Honsou andTonto Dikeh.She also made controversial publications about Doyin Okupe who described the publications as defamatory.
Linda Ikeji's blog was shut down on October 8, 2014, but restored on October 10, 2014 around midnight by Google for undisclosed reasons. Mr. Kola Ogunlade, a Google correspondent, said: "We take violations of policies very seriously as such activities diminish the experience for our users. When we are notified of the existence of content that may violate our Terms of Service, we act quickly to review it and determine whether it actually violates our policies. If we determine that it does, we remove it immediately."[
Honours and awards
Awards Year Category
Nigeria Blog Awards NBA 2013 Best Entertainment Blog
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