From Nurse to Influencer Sensation: Monet McMichael's Remarkable Journey

Monet McMichael is one of the most successful beauty influencers on social media. With over 1 million followers on Instagram and nearly 4 million on TikTok, she is one of the most recognizable faces on the platforms.

However, being a content creator wasn’t Monet’s first career goal. She was studying to be a nurse before going viral. Let’s take a look back at Monet’s journey from nursing school to earning millions as an influencer.

Monet attended the Rutgers Nursing School where she graduated in May 2022— something she made very clear on X (formerly Twitter), where she has 56K followers.

“I think imma have to explain that I GRADUATED nursing school and have since decided to do content creation full time — for the rest of my life,” she tweeted.

According to Monet, who is Black and Puerto Rican, her intention was just to show up on the internet and create a safe and relatable corner. She started vlogging in her teens and created her first YouTube channel at 12 years old.

However, it wasn’t until 2021 that her first video went viral, while she was studying and working at a hospital during the day and creating her content at night.

“I think I got a lot of confidence from social media and just having people in my comments that looked like me and just related to me,” she told Teen Vogue. “It started at my beauty desk in the comfort of my home, and now it's so amazing seeing the opportunities that are possible,” McMichael says. “I just had no idea that I would be able to experience these things.”

She quickly started gaining millions of followers — which forced her to decide her career path. However, it wasn’t a hard one. According to Forbes, Monet has a 13 percent engagement rate with her more than 5 million followers (the average influencer has 2 percent engagement) and earns $4 million a year.

The average salary for a registered nurse in the United States is $81,000.

“It was really a passion I feel I didn’t have inside and for nursing school too, it was such a big passion. But I feel like I always made time. I have really been on a routine. Like Monday to Friday, clogging into my classes, putting that time for studies so I did have that free time where I could do whatever I wanted,” she told Forbes. “I also felt like in nursing school people had that mindset where they were like ‘I have no life, I can’t do anything.’ It is like, just, cross your Ts and dot your Is and have your Saturday and Sunday.”

Since making the shift, Monet has evolved into one of the most popular beauty influencers on the internet. She has worked with nearly every major makeup and lifestyle brand including Dior, Fenty Beauty, Lancôme, Nars, MAC, Tory Burch, Armani Beauty, Lululemon, and Bumble.

She also collaborated with Amazon’s The Drop to create an inclusive fashion collection.

In 2023, she was signed to Range Media Partners, per Deadline.

According to Forbes, Monet McMichael currently ranks at No. 47 on the Forbes Top Creator List.

“I'm doing it for the younger version of me that I see in my cousins and my siblings and the girls that get it,” she added. We all express ourselves differently. It's like, ‘What can you really say about how I want to pop off?’”