Life & Work with Kourtnee Monroe of National

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kourtnee Monroe.

Kourtnee, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve never been one to play it small. Back home in Texas, I was the girl everyone called “ambitious,” the one with dreams that seemed too big for a small town, and eventually, Texas simply couldn’t hold them.

My start came from a leap of faith. I was scouted online for a film opportunity and got on a plane to New York City with no money, no support system, and honestly no plan to ever go back, whether I got the role or not. I didn’t get the role. What I got instead was a whole new life. New York is the big league for modeling and entertainment, and that move, fueled by ambition, work ethic, and a healthy dose of naivety, turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made.

New York raised me as a creative. I built my career from the ground up, working with brands and small agencies before going on to be featured in Playboy, Maxim, FHM, Harper’s Bazaar, and L’Officiel, walking for fashion brands like YEEZY, and seeing my face on Times Square and UK billboards. Along the way I became a published poet with three poetry books, launched my lingerie brand Monroe & Muse, and grew into a full-time content creator and entrepreneur.

My path has never been a straight line, and I’ve made peace with that. I’ve trained at Stella Adler School of Acting, explored different routes including studying abroad, and learned that the traditional way isn’t always my way. The latest chapter is one I didn’t see coming: I moved to Scotland for love. I now split my time between Edinburgh and New York City and I’m expanding my work into Glasgow and London. My whole story has been built on risk. These days I take calculated ones, but I still move by faith, not by sight.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Not even close, and I wouldn’t change that! Arriving in New York with no money, no family, and no safety net meant I essentially grew up there on my own, learning everything the hard way. There were months I didn’t know how I’d cover rent, rooms where I was the only one without connections, and more rejections than I could count. I had to learn to advocate for myself long before anyone else was willing to.

I’m also neurodivergent, which added another layer. For years I was navigating an industry that wasn’t built with people like me in mind: the overstimulation of sets, the unspoken social rules, the pressure to fit one narrow mold. It’s only in the last five years or so that I’ve seen the industry genuinely start to open up and make room for different kinds of minds, bodies, and stories. I’m grateful to be working in that shift, and I hope sharing my experience helps someone else feel less alone in it.
Some of the hardest lessons have been internal. I recently stepped away from a path that was taking a toll on my mental health, and choosing my peace over someone else’s idea of what my life should look like taught me that rest and redirection aren’t failure.
And while moving abroad was my choice, choosing something doesn’t make it easy. Starting over in a new country, rebuilding my network, and adapting to a new culture as a neurodivergent woman has stretched me in ways I never expected. But every struggle has shaped me. I’ve learned to bend without breaking, and I’m proud of the woman those hard seasons made me.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a model, content creator, poet, and entrepreneur, but at the heart of everything I do, I’m a storyteller. Whether I’m in front of the camera, writing, or building a brand, I’m always telling a story about confidence, reinvention, and the courage to choose your own path.

I’m best known for my modeling work, from editorial features in Harper’s Bazaar, L’Officiel, Maxim, Playboy, and FHM to walking for YEEZY and appearing on UK and Times Square billboards. Glamour and editorial are where I feel most at home, and these days I create much of my own content, often shooting, styling, and directing it myself.

Beyond modeling, I’m a published poet. My collection Soft Girls Love Loud Men explores love, femininity, and vulnerability, and I’m currently writing Apartment 703, a memoir series on Substack about my decade-plus in New York. I also founded Monroe & Muse, a lingerie brand inspired by old-Hollywood glamour, and I share my life between New York and Scotland with my online community through my culture shock and expat content, which has really resonated with people dreaming of their own leap abroad.
What I’m most proud of is that I built all of this without a roadmap. No connections, no family in the industry, no safety net, just vision and persistence.
What sets me apart is that I don’t fit in one box, and I’ve stopped trying to. I bring New York grit, a transatlantic perspective, and a neurodivergent way of seeing the world to everything I create. I’m not just a face in a photo; I’m the voice, the writer, and the creative director behind my own story.

In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
I think we’re heading into an era of realness. For years, social media rewarded the highlight reel: the luxury trips, the perfect outfits, the polished lifestyle. People are tired of it. Audiences are hungry for content that reflects real life, not just an escape from it, and simply flexing a lifestyle won’t hold attention the way it once did.
I also believe we’ll see a real return to the physical and analog. People are picking up offline hobbies and skills again: film photography, vinyl, printed books and zines, handmade fashion.
As AI-generated content floods our feeds, anything made by human hands and rooted in lived experience will become more valuable, not less. Authenticity will be the new luxury.
Within the creator space, the shift is already happening from showing the finished product to showing the process. The most compelling creators right now are the ones teaching, building in public, and letting people see the work and expertise behind the result. Talent and skill are becoming the content.
For models and creatives, I think that means the industry will reward people who have depth beyond the image, who can write, direct, teach, and connect. That’s exactly where I want to be. It’s why I write poetry and memoir, why I shoot and create so much of my own work, and why I share the messy, human parts of my journey alongside the glamorous ones. The next 5 to 10 years belong to the people brave enough to be real.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/themonroerenaissance
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekourtneemonroe/
• Twitter: https://x.com/kourtneemonroe
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KourtneeMonroe
• Other: https://kourtneemonroe.komi.io

Image Credits
Photographer Credits: Cochise Clausell and Arthur St. John