Ubah Hassan Focuses on Business Over Love As She Becomes New York Housewife in Season 14
The Real Housewives of New York City's Ubah Hassan spends her time making money while perfecting her hot sauce empire, Ubah Hot.
A model-turned-hot-sauce-business-owner will be looking for both friendships and love when Season 14 of The Real Housewives Of New York City premieres on Bravo.
Housewife Ubah Hassan, who modeled for designers such as Ralph Lauren, Oscar de la Renta, and Gucci, is famously quiet when it comes to her love life. Scrolling through her Instagam, you’ll find not boyfriends, but cooking posts, and many pictures and videos of her chowing down on a good meal.
Hassan was linked to 53-year-old music mogul Jason Flom of Lava Records back in 2014, according to Page Six. But since then she’s kept mostly mum on other love interests.
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“Being 5-feet, 11 and a half-inches is wonderful, because when I walk into a club, I’m so tall that no men want to talk to me,” she told Page Six. “I love that. I think, ‘Just don’t come near me.’”
Although she lived a glamorous life in front of fashion photographers, the 35-year-old came from much humbler beginnings as she fled from war-ravaged Somalia for Kenya with her father and brother as a child, according to The Fashion Spot. She was separated from her mother and sisters, who went to Ethiopia, for years until they were all reunited in Canada when she was 15 years old. They lived in a shelter for a year, according to Oprah Daily.
Hassan also has a family connection to another Housewife — she’s the cousin of Chanel Ayan of The Real Housewives Of Dubai. As far as advice for dealing with the other ‘Wives, Ayan reportedly told Hassan, “Look, you are from Somalia, so you will be fine. They will think twice before trying to mess with us.”
Hassan’s life changed when she was scouted to be a model as a teenager, and eventually moved to New York City at 26, according to Oprah Daily. It was in an apartment Hassan shared with seven other models that she first began creating her famous hot sauce, Ubah Hot, in an attempt to bring a taste of home to her bland model diet.
“I would make this hot sauce and put it in a jar and bring it to dinner,” she told Oprah Daily. “And people would grab it, like licking it: ‘What is this? What is it?’”
Hassan credits her mother’s example for how she approaches entrepreneurship.
“Growing up, my mother had a corn farm in Somalia, she didn’t have money to pay people up front, so she would pay people by credit,” Hassan told Forbes. “And people would line up to work for her on credit because of how she treated them. I learned then that people don’t want to work just for money, they also want to work in a particular place because of how they are treated. She always made sure to help the families, she knew all of the workers, she created a sense of community.”
Watch Hassan, Sai De Silva, Erin Dana Lichy, Jenna Lyons, Jessel Taank and Brynn Whitfield when Season 14 of The Real Housewives of New York City premieres on Bravo Sunday July 16, at 9/8c. Episodes will stream the next day on Peacock. Catch a preview of the new season here.
