Sayyora Badalbaeva
Born and raised in Uzbekistan, Sayyora moved to the U.S. as a teenager. Breaking away from her conservative upbringing, she has found her true calling as a wild West Coast girl party girl. This tattooed pierced seductress is currently enrolled at USC and has a 4.0 GPA. Sayyora will lay into anyone who is not as smart as her and won’t tolerate ignorance. An aspiring lawyer, she loves to argue but knows she needs to work on always correcting people and putting them in their place.
Source: www.oxygen.com/people/sayyora
Kofi: Tell me about growing up in Uzbekistan. Do you miss it at all?
Sayyora: Of course I miss certain aspects of my motherland but I am definitely very grateful to have had the blessing of moving to the United States. Uzbekistan is a very corrupt country that has been under a dictatorial and authoritarian regime since its independence from the Soviet Union. There is really no future there – not the kind I can and will have here. I miss my childhood and I definitely miss the food the most. Other than that, America is definitely where it’s at for me.
Kofi: Have you always wanted to be a lawyer?
Sayyora: Yes, for as long as I can remember. I remember when I was six years old and people would ask me what I wanted to become when I grow up and my answer had always been “a lawyer”. I know it’s odd for a child to have that dream – most of my friends in elementary school would say they wanted to become an actress or a fire fighter, but not me. I have been a realist since I was a little girl. My dream job, however, is to become an actress. I just never wanted to be another girl who is lost in “La-La” land dreaming to make it big and become a known actress. Of course I would love that. Acting has been my passion since kindergarten - I have participated in many plays since I was younger and theatre has always been a hobby of mine. I always got the lead role. But I was always afraid to waste my prime years pursuing something I did not know for sure will pay off. If I go to school and get my law degree, I know for a fact with my academic skills and intelligence I can get a very good paying job as an attorney. I want to be able to support my family and provide for my future children. And that’s something that always gave me comfort, hence why I am still pursuing a law career.
Kofi: Are you still currently in school with a 4.0 GPA? Did moving to LA impact your desire to be on TV or join the Bad Girls Club?
Sayyora: Yes, I am currently enrolled at USC full time as a pre-law student and yes I do still hold a 4.0 GPA. I am a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.
Moving to LA definitely gave me an opportunity to pursue TV and join the Bad Girls Club. Like I mentioned before acting and television has always been something that I had in the back of my head. But living in Pennsylvania and New Jersey – such opportunities never presented themselves there like they do in LA. I remember when I lived in New Jersey and in middle school my favorite reality TV show was “Jersey Shore”. I was completely obsessed with it and I always told myself this, “I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but all I know is someday somehow I will be on a reality TV show like Jersey Shore”. I just always knew stuff like that was right up my alley. With my crazy, fun, and outgoing personality combined with my love for social life – that makes a perfect recipe for a reality TV personality. So I did it.
Kofi: Who was the first person you told when you found out you were selected to be on the Bad Girls Club? What did you do?
Sayyora: Honestly, after I applied for it initially online and got the first response saying I have been selected to move on to the next stage of casting (there are like six different stages) I already knew I got it. I started telling friends and family that I will be on Bad Girls Club. When people asked if this was for sure and if I really made it through the final stage of casting I would say “No not yet but I know I got it”. I was confident I would get picked because there was no reason why they wouldn’t pick me – I was perfect for a show like that haha. Forgive me if I sound cocky but that’s just how I felt. I remember getting my second email saying I got selected for an in-person interview in Hollywood for the show, and at the time, I was at a bar in Miami with my good friend William. We were just catching up having a few drinks when I got that email. I freaked out and started screaming. Then I made him take a bunch of shots to celebrate haha. So that’s how that went down.
Kofi: What was the funniest thing that happened while shooting? Who do you love the most? Who do you hate the most?
Sayyora: Honestly, there were so many hilarious moments during filming but too bad they did not air a lot of them during the episodes. I think one of the funniest moments that stood out to me was when we took a trip to Vegas. Two of the girls were performing in Vegas that night so my girls and I were in our suite pre-gaming and getting ready. Our squad was known to be the drinkers of the house so the producers constantly had to watch us haha. So the night of the performance one of the producers came in and took all our alcohol away because she said they didn’t want us to get too wasted for this night since it was an important night for production. We got so pissed and tried to reason with them but they weren’t having it. But I wasn’t upset at all because I had a bottle stashed away in my suitcase that I didn’t tell the producers about. When they left we wanted to take some shots but we always had mics on us so they would be able to hear us and see us through the stationary cameras in our room. So Kiki and I ended up going in the big closet with sliding doors, sitting down there and drinking from water bottles so the cameras wouldn’t catch us. And we tried to disguise the sound of pouring the liquor by making sex noises and moaning, pretending we were having lesbian sex. Honestly, it was so freaking funny I’m giggling even thinking back on this day. The camera lady and the sound lady ended up finding us because I guess they thought the noises we were making were super weird so they had to see what we were doing. They opened the closet and caught us drinking on the floor. The camera crew started cracking up because it was just a hilarious sight. They took that bottle away too haha.
At this point, I don’t hate or love anybody. It’s been a few months since filming ended so I don’t have those strong feelings I had before. We all moved on and we’re all living our lives apart from each other. Hate is a strong word and hating someone messes with my positivity so I refrain from that feeling.
Kofi: As a college educated individual were you ever afraid of the impact the show would have on your professional pursuits? What about your family?
Sayyora: I never lived my life worrying about what others might think of me. There will always be people who will hate you and judge you and there will be those you inspire and those who love you. That’s just life. No matter what you do, whether you’re a priest or a nun, or a reality TV personality on a ratchet show like Bad Girls Club, people will always have their opinions about you. Yes, it has crossed my mind that my participation in the show may affect my career but that’s all that happened – it just crossed my mind. I never worried about it because I believe that everything happens for a reason and life will happen the way it was meant to happen. At the end of the day, it is all about who you know, not what you know. What people who judge me and tell me that I will never be taken seriously as a lawyer because of Bad Girls Club or my social media need to realize is that at the end of the day, the fact that I am so well connected in this industry is all that will matter. I know big time lawyers and corporation owners and I already have internships set up for myself. I pretty much already have a job as an attorney set up for myself as soon as I graduate. I know people who are more than happy to hire me to represent them and be their attorney. People who could care less about my photos or the shows I have been in. All that’s left for me to do is get that degree and pass the bar exam and I am Gucci.
On the other hand, my family was a little less than happy to hear of my participation in a show like Bad Girls Club. They knew nothing about it until I told them and showed them trailers, which made them almost get a heart attack. We come from a cultural, Muslim country. Even though my family isn’t religious, they are still very old-school and traditional so they definitely did not want me to be on that show. However, my mom was more supportive than I could have ever imagined her to be. She told me that she has accepted the fact that I am a bad girl and that I have been a rebellious girl since I was a child. Why shouldn’t I pursue it and be on TV for it? I was very surprised to hear her say that but very pleased at the same time. She is slowly but surely coming to terms with my wild side.
Kofi: So now you've amassed a large following on social media. What kind of opportunities are you getting now?
Sayyora: I definitely have gained quite a following on social media and it keeps growing day by day. I am getting inquiries for modeling, photoshoots, video shoots, club appearances, meet and greets, advertisements of different products, magazine covers, etc. A lot of my fans have asked me to start a YouTube channel as well so I am thinking about that. It is very hard to focus on a rigorous school schedule and maintain straight A’s while also doing all this extra stuff on the side. School is very time consuming and so is everything else I am being asked to do.
Kofi: You're known on Instagram for taking and posting racy photos. You're obviously very confident in yourself and your body. How are you so comfortable taking and posting those pictures? Do you ever fear being judged?
Sayyora: Do I ever fear being judged? HA. That just made me chuckle. I am judged every single day of my life and have been for as long as I can remember. I get plenty of hate comments and people judging me all the time but I just ignore and click the block button. I am confident in myself because if I don’t love myself then who will? I am very blessed to look the way I do and I thank my parents for this all the time. Of course, as any other female, I do certainly have my insecurities like weight gain. Just like my grandmother and my father, I am very predisposed to gaining weight very easily and I have to work twice as hard as any other person to simply stay the same weight. That’s probably my biggest insecurity. After Bad Girls Club especially, I gained 20 pounds. My family constantly throws it in my face that I am fat and need to lose weight and that I look gross. So what I did was get a BBL (Brazilian Butt Lift) also known as a fat transfer. After filming, I flew out to Miami to visit my mom (that’s where she lives) and decided to get this surgery. The doctor took the fat out of my stomach and put it in my butt. I was always confident and I always looked good but getting this little bit of fat taken out of my stomach definitely made me feel even better and made me want to flaunt my body even more to make the haters even more mad haha. However, I haven’t been very good at keeping up my shape as I don’t really like to work out and I eat like a grown ass man. I have gained a little bit of weight back but I am trying to do cardio as much as I can so the surgery does not go to waste.
Kofi: You must get a lot of DMs. What has that been like? Any funny stories?
Sayyora: Oh man, this is a hard one. I definitely get a lot of DMs and I definitely get some out of control stuff said to me in there. One that stood out to me was a thirteen year old boy asking me to stay with him for the weekend because his mom is out of town so he could snort a Xanax off my forehead. I’ve had guys ask for my permission to masturbate to my photos. I’ve even had a few marriage proposals in there haha.
Kofi: Now that the show is over. What's next for Sayyora?
Sayyora: I am working on launching my own clothing line, so hopefully that gets done pretty soon. I am hoping to be on a few other reality shows. I definitely do not want my TV career to be done just because Bad Girls Club is over. I would love to do more TV because I think it is for me and I was made for this. Of course I am still going to school and still working on becoming a lawyer. Other than that, my two biggest goals besides school is to open up my own hookah lounge and get my own TV show. For now these are just my dreams but soon, I plan on making them my reality
Follow @kofi
Follow @sayyoraink