Bozoma “Boz” Saint John may be a seasoned executive who has played various leadership roles at PepsiCo, Apple Music, Uber, Endeavor, and Netflix, but she feared joining The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
She said going public with her relationship with Keely Watson was her scariest part of joining the show. The 47-year-old author and podcaster, who joined the franchise for its 14th season in November 2024, shared the revelation in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE about her debut season.
Saint John introduced viewers to her partner during a beach outing on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Watson later supported Saint John through her fibroid surgery.
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“This was the area that was probably the scariest going onto this show because I had never been public — when I say never, I mean never — with any romance that I’ve had in the last 11 years after losing my husband,” Saint John, who was married to Peter Saint John for 10 years until his death in December 2015 from Burkitt’s lymphoma, explained.
“Even when I was married, I still didn’t really talk about my husband like that,” she told PEOPLE. “Of course, I’ve made a conscious choice to do that because I do think it’s important.”
She explained, “For people like me who have love and lost — regardless of how that loss came about, if it was widowhood or divorce or separation — we deserve to be loved.”
“We deserve to be hopeful about love. I don’t think it diminishes me at all to be a woman of my esteem and say that I want love, that I want a man in my life,” Saint John continued, noting that she doesn’t think confessing to that need makes her “less than.”
“I want all of the things,” she said before reiterating that “it’s been really scary to be that open about that part of [her] life.”
“What I’m hoping is that people get to see that part of me, which I don’t share often, which is that I am also complicated in that way,” she added. “I’m struggling with being in love and also trying to expand my family and discovering whether or not I am compatible enough with somebody else to commit for life.”
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Saint John told PEOPLE that while sharing her relationship with the world has been a significant step, she is also focused on “becoming a better girlfriend”.
“I want to be better as a friend. I want to be better as a businesswoman,” she said. “I want to be a better mother. And I want to be a better, well-suited human — and that includes my health.” Adding, “So I think in all parts of my life, I just want to get better and better.”
Saint John revealed that she has eliminated dairy from her diet and partnered with Violife to support her health goals. “They have nondairy products that I can easily substitute for the things that I have in my life,” she explained.
Saint John is speaking about this journey to better her health because she “wanted to be able to share with people as much about how to better your life,” she said, adding, “I don’t want to keep secrets about how to be better in my health too. I want to share everything.”
