Michelle Ntalami is a household name in Kenya. The award-winning entrepreneur founded Africa’s fastest-growing haircare line, Marini Naturals, in 2015. Her products reach 12 countries, including several in Europe. OkayAfrica named her among Africa’s top 100 women in 2018. Some called her a “beacon of woman empowerment.”
Before encountering God, Ntalami lived as a lesbian and championed LGBTQ causes.
As one of Kenya’s youngest entrepreneurs, Top 40 Under 40 Women, and popular social media personalities, the then-39-year-old businesswoman had it all—fame, money, influence. But in August 2023, her life took a different direction. Ntalami decided to follow Jesus.
Christian users on social media expressed skepticism, some saying her conversion was a gimmick. Others said she was just trying to get a husband. Ntalami said one ministry openly doubted her salvation. Some people wished her well.
“It has not been a bed of roses,” Ntalami said. “I have faced a lot of online bullying. Whereas there has been a lot of support, there was a lot of mockery, teasing, insults. It hurt a lot.”
About 85 percent of Kenyans identify themselves as Christian. Kenya prides itself in being a majority-Christian nation, and Kenyan culture doesn’t favor LGBTQ relationships. Still, becoming a follower of Jesus in Kenya cost Ntalami social media followers, many close friends, business opportunities, and possessions.
“I lost many parts of me not aligned to the kingdom of God … clothes, luxury items, even my house. … I had to move out of it,” she said. “The Lord wanted me to start afresh. … That was an expensive affair.”
Ntalami quit using alcohol and drinking games, horoscopes and astrology. She threw out or burned explicit novels and other belongings she felt dishonored God. She even deleted all her earlier Instagram posts, choosing to start afresh with her new identity in Christ.
In a December 2024 Instagram post she said, “God led me to burn and tear down altars of things and items that were either displeasing to Him, or I had unknowingly made idols in my life.”
The popular influencer shifted her posts to draw attention to her faith rather than thirst-trap photos, and she even sought to dissuade a friend from abandoning Christianity.
Ntalami said she is determined to run her life and her business in a way that reflects her Christian values. She carefully chooses whom she hires and with whom she does business. She’s selective about what brands or items she promotes on her YouTube and Instagram channels.
In one case, honoring Christ meant losing business. Marini Naturals had made a deal to start exporting products to the US, but a large US-based distributor canceled it after Ntalami announced her conversion—the distributer didn’t agree with her Christian values. Ntalami said she looks to God for new business opportunities.
“For now, I am waiting on the Lord for his leading in business,” she said.
Though Ntalami identified herself as androsexual before becoming a Christian, her lesbian relationship with BBC presenter Makena Njeri was well-known in Kenya. To some, the couple represented sexual freedom for Kenyan women and those who identified as LGBTQ.
Galck+ (formerly the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya) estimates Kenya’s LGBTQ population totals 1.3 million people, about 2 percent of the country’s population. Kenyan law has long criminalized same-sex acts. Still, the country has also given asylum to LGBTQ-identifying people leaving nearby countries such as Uganda over discrimination claims.
In 2016, LGBTQ activist Eric Gitari—backed by several LGBTQ organizations—petitioned courts to repeal section 162 of Kenya’s Penal Code, which criminalizes sexual acts that deviate from what is traditional or natural. Section 165 also criminalizes acts of “gross indecency” between males. Both sections have been a subject of debate in Kenya, though the Human Rights Watch reported it knows of only two prosecutions against four people in the last decade.
In May 2019, the High Court ruled both sections were constitutional and rejected claims that they violated human rights. Despite the loss, the case propelled LGBTQ activism into the public eye. Activist organizations such as Galck+ and National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission have used the case to build a more vocal movement in Kenya.
Ntalami said she turned to lesbian relationships during a vulnerable time of life. Later, she began to question those relationships when she didn’t find the healing and truth she had hoped to find.
Painful experiences, such as the death of her father, caused her to despair and question the existence of God. She had left the Roman Catholic faith of her childhood and stopped going to church.
Then everything changed.
Ntalami said that on the evening of her conversion she felt a sense of heaviness and foreboding, as if something bad might happen to her. She said she sensed an oppressive spirit all around her, pushing against her, trying to choke life out of her.
Alone and desperate, Ntalami cried out to God. She said a light then shone around her and she heard God call her name, Michelle, three times.
“The Lord began healing me. I could feel my heart becoming new,” Ntalami told CT. For a year she lived in isolation, slowing down on work and staying away from social media. Ntalami spent this time reading the Bible, praying, and worshiping God. For the first time in her life, she read the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.
Eventually, Ntalami joined a Pentecostal church, but her Roman Catholic background, long church absence, and lack of Christian friends left her feeling lost. Her public past life affected how some Christians saw her. “The church looks at you skeptically,” she said. “It was not an easy journey. It was a lonely journey. Sometimes you get some judgmental stares.”
Her mother and siblings stood by her. A few loyal friends accepted her decision without judging her. Ntalami and her mother—whom she led to faith in Christ—got baptized together on June 23, 2024, at Nairobi Baptist Church.
Ntalami continues to run Marini Naturals and now leads the media, marketing, and publicity team at her local church. In 2024, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa invited her to represent Africa at its annual Entrepreneurial Conference.
Ntalami is also helping organize a global business forum—this year’s theme is called The Eden Mandate—that aims to bring together 6,000 business leaders from around the world and teach them how to build businesses that glorify God.
“I want the world to remember me for the impact I will create in the marketplace,” Ntalami said, “and that I brought God’s glory to the business world.”
