Nabela Noor Reveals How She Feels About Being Labeled the ‘Brown Martha Stewart’ (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Hosting expert Nabela Noor’s new Tubi series, Hosted By Nabela Noor, premiered on the streaming service last month

• The content creator, 34, is the first Bangladeshi-American in U.S. television history to host her own lifestyle series for any major streamer or network

• Noor spoke to PEOPLE about how it feels to step onto a bigger platform and how she feels about being so often compared to other lifestyle television stars like Martha Stewart

Nabela Noor strives for authenticity above all else.

The entrepreneur premiered her Tubi streaming series Hosted By Nabela Noor on May 20, making her the first Bangladeshi-American in U.S. television history to host her own lifestyle series for any major streamer or network. The show picks up from her viral social media series Pockets of Peace as Noor, 34, continues to teach her audience that any occasion can be a special occasion.

“This show is kind of encouraging you to romanticize your everyday and to make everything a little bit more special than you normally would,” Noor tells PEOPLE. “We have more small moments than we do big moments that we’re waiting for. So make those small moments a little bit more special.”

Her millions of followers have spent years openly hoping to see her on a bigger platform doing longer-form content, though Noor’s dreams for herself date back even further. She considers herself a lifelong admirer of hosting personalities like Martha Stewart and Ina Garten. Now, with the premiere of Hosted By Nabela Noor, the influencer finally gets to join them on the other side of the screen.

However, Noor notes that the space she occupies on television is markedly different. Growing up, shows hosted by the likes of Stewart, 84, and Garten, 78, didn’t always feel so accessible to her. The televised lifestyle world Noor watched as a child was “predominantly a very white-dominated space,” she says.

“I never felt like I could aspire to have a life like that. It didn’t necessarily feel so accessible to me,” she explains. “I didn’t see that growing up … There was nothing like that. This [show] is exciting for me because hopefully, by it existing, it’ll make opportunities for even more to come.”

Noor continues, “When you come into my home on this show, you’re just seeing my experiences, my lived experiences: having a blended home, being in a multicultural relationship, having a mother who is incredibly present in our lives and who happens to wear the hijab.”

In creating the series, Noor knew she had to lean into authenticity as much as possible, just as she’s done online. From day one, she let go of the pressure to build a series that represents a whole group of people or a whole culture; instead, she set the expectation that she only needed to represent herself as the host.

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“No one’s looking at Martha [Stewart] and is like, ‘Martha, you represent all white women across the board.’ I don’t need to represent all brown women across the board. I just need to be me, and I hope that resonates,” says Noor.

It’s only natural that she would look to Stewart as her inspiration, since Noor is regularly compared to the business mogul. She’s often dubbed “the Brown Martha Stewart,” which Noor believes to be as much of an honor as it’s intended to be.

“When my audience has hailed me that time and time again, I always take it as the biggest compliment, because I understand what that represents. I understand what that feels like,” the mom of two tells PEOPLE of the comparison between her and Stewart. “To have someone that you can kind of turn to that does reflect your lived experiences — and that does feel like you can connect with — is so cool.”

She adds, “It’s huge shoes to fill, and I do not believe that I am her in any capacity. I’m definitely me, but I get what that means, and it is the highest praise.”

Read the original article on People