A FORMER chicken shop worker who was homeless for months now makes up to £3,000 for a single social media post.
Shantania Beckford, 29, arrived in Walsall, West Mids, from Jamaica as an undocumented migrant aged just nine.
Three times a week after school, she would help her struggling mum clean people's homes around Birmingham to scrape what little they had.
But when Shantania was 17, her mum returned to the Caribbean, leaving the teen to work long hours in a chicken shop after college to make ends meet.
Struggling to pay rent, she was kicked out by her landlord and slept on a pal's sofa.
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She told BirminghamLive: "While I was homeless I started doing people's makeup for video and photo shoots, mainly because I was bored."
Shantania later wound up in a hostel where she would do makeup and photoshoots for the women in there.
Determined makeup and beauty was her destiny, Shantania continued to make videos as she desperately held down three restaurant jobs.
After saving enough cash she rented a council property, bought a camera and launched her business empire from her bedroom where she made YouTube videos.
She explained: "I was making videos about everything I had learned over the course of my life - like where to find cheap wigs, how to look after yourself when you work long hours, that kind of thing."
The beauty's popularity exploded and not long after she packed in the day job and is now one of the UK's top influencers.
Stunning Shantania now has over 300,000 YouTube subscribers and 200,000 Instagram followers, where she can make up to £3,000 posting adverts for major brands she works with.
Shantania also likes to give back to those less fortunate, giving away excess products she is sent to promote on her social media.
