Today we’d like to introduce you to Angel Saunders.
Hi Angel, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’ve always had a love for the arts, but I guess I’ll start with my professional career. In college, I had two amazing internships- one being with the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, that to be honest, I feel I didn’t take seriously enough. I think I was too young to appreciate what it was and what it could’ve been. My other internship was with iHeartMedia New Orleans and I think I made the most of it. I started in the Promotions Department as an intern, got called back for a second semester, and ended up being hired prior to graduating from the University of New Orleans in 2012. From there, I became a Radio Personality for multiple stations there including Q93, Voodoo 104, and Throwback 96.3. I loved it! I met so many great people who became like family and even got to travel to Toronto for TIFF for work.
However, I lived at home during college, and besides briefly living in St. Louis after Hurricane Katrina in high school, I had never lived outside of New Orleans. I stayed with iHeart from 2012 to 2018 when my desire to grow my passion, see new things, and experience life outside of a city I’d lived in my entire life led me to Los Angeles. So with no job lined up, I typed up a two-week notice and gave it to my boss. Some people called it crazy, and while it definitely gave me some anxiety, it ultimately felt freeing to do something like that. To take a leap. So there I was in one of the biggest and most expensive cities in the country, with no job and my first roommate situation didn’t even work out. Luckily I had other friends in the city. I found a job at a random restaurant as a hostess because you know, money is important.
Soon after, I joined AfterBuzzTV, an entertainment outlet founded by television personality Maria Menounos, who has worked for shows such as E! News and Entertainment Tonight. AfterBuzz TV allowed me to take what I’d spent years doing as a Radio Personality and turn that into TV Personality. One of the highlights being covering the 2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards, just one year after moving to LA on a leap of faith! Shortly after moving to LA and joining AfterBuzz TV, I was hired at Entercom LA as a Board Op. It was very different being “behind the scenes” since I had come from being actual On Air Talent back home, but honestly I was just happy to have a foot in the door at an LA radio station who I didn’t even know a soul at. I applied online and got an interview just from my resume and was literally offered the job like a day after my interview.
About six months after that, I was asked to join the Morning Show crew as a Phone Screener. Again, it wasn’t “on air”, but I was super grateful. I literally moved to LA with no job lined up, drove my car across the country for two and a half days, and within a year was working hands-on with an LA radio station morning show. Plus the hours were great, I was done daily by 10am 🙂 So between AfterBuzz and Entercom, that was my professional LA life up until Covid when things pretty much shut down.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It definitely was not a smooth road! The anxiousness of quitting a major company like iHeart with NOTHING lined up to move across the country and constantly having co-workers those last two weeks asking me what was next or friends/family asking what was next was crazy. Then that drive from New Orleans to LA is not something I ever want to do again, lol. I am not a road trip kind of girl. Then it was my first time ever having a roommate, which my first situation ended pretty soon after it started. I also got fired from that restaurant I mentioned in the last question. They had an issue with the hours I worked at the radio station. I’m not gonna lie, it did hurt, but only because I had gone my whole life without ever being fired from a single job. But other than that, I didn’t care. I moved to LA to chase my dream, not clean tables or ask people if they needed a table for two. I was never going to include that job on a resume anyway.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
So what I do is entertainment hosting. I’m a former Radio Personality transitioning to TV Personality. I’ve been talking to your favorite celebs since 2012, covering some of the coolest events and when I’m not doing that I’m living life. Enjoying my tribe of friends and trying new things. One of my favorite parts of my journey has been my fearlessness and thirst for the thrill of life. From moving to LA with no job to being at the beach taking surfing lessons from strangers, I think I’m all about doing what I need to do to fill my soul. I’m a good person, with a good heart, who’s always down for a good time.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I touched on this in a couple of the previous questions so I’m just going to keep it brief and say “no risk, no reward”.
Contact Info:
- Email:Â [email protected]
- Instagram:Â @AngelSaunders
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBDq44oxEi0
