We were lucky to catch up with Rona Johnson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Rona, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

When I was five years old I was watching America’s Next Top Model and realized I was completely enamored with the competition and beauty of the models from America’s Next Top Models. I was the complete opposite of what those models represented – I was shy, extremely quiet, and not very confident – but something about those models struck a chord in me and I decided that was what I wanted to be when I grew up. The twist was that I wanted to be more than that, I wanted to be a model in Japan.

Since making that decision, I began to work under the table as a waitress in the 7th grade to save up money for my move to Japan. I worked every single day after school from 2:30 pm to 8:30 pm, got home at 9-10 pm and finished my homework around 12-2 am at times. This continued all throughout middle school up until getting my degree in Business in Global Politics.

Knowing models start their careers at a young age, I decided I needed to expedite my college career and decided to get permission to take extra classes during the semester as well as multiple classes over summer. I ended up graduating a year earlier than my peers and made the decision to move to Tokyo a semester before graduation (my last class was online).

I moved to Tokyo on October 29th, 2018 with all of my savings, one suitcase, and a backpack. I had no job secured, no modeling agency secured, no relatives, no wifi or cellular service on my phone, and no knowledge of how to read kanji (Chinese characters) – on top of that, I just signed a lease for a sharehouse that housed 13 women a week prior.

A lot of people told me I was crazy and unrealistic moving to a new country that I’ve never even visited before – but to me, I only saw it as a necessary step and an opportunity at living the life I had always dreamed of for myself. I was also lucky that I had dual citizenship because I’m half-Japanese.

Rona, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a half Japanese fashion model and have been in the industry for over 6 years now. I started off modeling with an agency in Tokyo and eventually began working behind the camera and working my way up into Creative Director and Visual Lead for creating photoshoot concepts for brands. Once I left the modeling world in Tokyo behind, I relocated to Los Angeles where I began working in acting, voice-overs, filmmaking, and now a health start up company of my own.

I got into the modeling industry through submitting myself to agents in the beginning, but eventually got scouted by an agent in Shibuya and signed with that agency. My goal for becoming a model in Japan wasn’t simply to make money or be famous – to be honest I wanted to become a TV personality on those quirky Japanese game shows and share my passion for comedy – but that never came to fruition (yet).

Since I couldn’t achieve that during my time with my agency in Tokyo, I decided to take things into my own hands and start my own production in film instead. I began writing, directing, producing, and acting in my own short films in 2023 and my first short film “Monster Under the Bed” won 2nd runner up at the Los Angeles’s 2023 Grand championship Audience Awards out of 150 films. After every screening of my short film, people would come up to me and tell me how inspired they were and how excited they were to see my upcoming works in film – which is one of my proudest moments.

I would have to say all of the work I do is in the creative field, and what I love is to tell stories. Whether it’s visually through modeling, or through films I write and direct – I want to evoke emotions and leave people feeling ANYTHING. Even my start up, which is launching it’s first product this year, is very story-based. I want to create companies, films, visuals, that also entertain and will be talked about after the initial interaction.

Have you ever had to pivot?

As an entrepreneur/creative, pivoting is something I had to get used to very early in my career. I used to be the kind of person who would write down every step of my 10-year plan and try to follow that to the T. I was unwilling to bend and change course, because I was stubborn and although that has helped me stay consistent and power through many obstacles – it’s also set me back from seeing other opportunities in disguise.

The first big pivot I had to learn from was during my 3rd year with my modeling agency in Tokyo. Unfortunately, there are toxic modeling agencies – whether it’s sexual harassment, power harassment, emotional manipulation, or financial dependency – many agencies take advantage of young girls and their naivety. I was one of those girls and I started to become stressed from harassment to the point of having health complications. I tried pushing through and continuing my modeling career, but I was suffering so much that I was no longer happy and my health was being sacrificed.

I ended up leaving the agency, which never paid me for the last three months of work that I had done, and tried to blacklist me from the modeling industry for leaving; despite coming to a verbal agreement as well as proper declaration of contract termination.

With everything going on, I decided to move back to the United States for a few months and move back once 4 months had passed so that legally our contract was over. During those four months, I began learning new skills – I took acting classes, I began new sports, meeting creative people, and I realized I was much happier creating things again after enduring abuse for the last three years.

The problem was, I didn’t want to pivot my life – I still wanted to become a TV personality and I had an established career in Tokyo where I would get recognized on the street, see myself on billboard campaigns in shops, and I felt like if I gave that all up I would have to start from zero all over again. I didn’t want to do that and I was angry for all the time I had suffered in that agency to just walk away.

It took me six months to decide to move all my things back from Japan and relocate fully to the United States, and even longer to work on healing myself from feeling bitter. I wish I had used that time more wisely and focused my energy more into my creative endeavors like filmmaking instead.

And luckily for me, I met the right people and realized that dreams don’t always take the shape you want them to. I still get to model, I still get to create – in fact I get to create way more than I did while I was in Tokyo. So pivoting is necessary and a part of life, I just had to open my eyes to opportunity.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

When I moved to Tokyo I had about 1,700 followers on instagram. It wasn’t bad – but it wasn’t enough to give me any negotiating power over my jobs. And unfortunately in this industry, followers matter A LOT. Sometimes girls would get rejected from jobs just because of their lack of a following.

So, I decided to create a tiktok account and post food reviews in Japanese, teach English, and just make as much content as I could. I also made a youtube account where I vlogged my days as a model in Tokyo. I think I got lucky, because I have the face that a lot of Asian people like, so I gained 110k followers in less than a month of posting on tiktok and my instagram also grew to 25k.

Once I had the issues with my agency however, I stopped posting as much and my follower count went down to about 15k on instagram. I just now started reposting content and getting my groove back.

My biggest advice would be to just post consistently. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you learn how to edit and what works and what doesn’t along the way. I used to be someone who overthought everything and that included my tiktoks and reels. It doesn’t have to perfect, and it’s better to be seen than forgotten.

Contact Info:

• Website: rona-official.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rice.a.rona/
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@ricecraquer
• Other: www.youtube.com/@RonaAndCo

Image Credits
Images by me. First image (headshot) photographer by Missael (@doyenphoto) HMUA Fatima Marin (@fatitheartist)