Julia Romano would like to get a person matter straight: while her brother is the lights-out pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays, she’s the well-known a single in the Romano household.
Very well, if you check with her, she’s a “full-time popular human being and a section-time attorney.”
Because Romano commenced publishing films on her TikTok account, @julesthelawyer, in 2020 — mostly to insert some existence and laughter back again into her times through the COVID-19 pandemic — she’s amassed extra than 100,000 followers and 5.6 million likes.
“I considered I was earning it big remaining like a very first-year affiliate on Bay Avenue,” Romano mentioned.
But, unlike some influencers, she didn’t start off publishing on a regular basis to make money. She wanted to be famous.
“Like, that’s what I preferred — to be renowned on TikTok,” Romano informed the Star in an job interview this week.
She’s well-known enough, thinking about her following and likes are just about double the population of Toronto, or 106 periods the ability of the Rogers Centre, the place her brother requires the mound.
It’s grow to be her signature on the platform — staying a “famous person” — with comedic films that normally start out with, “Welcome to a day in my daily life as a famous man or woman residing in downtown Toronto,” or, “Hey TikTok, arrive shell out a day night time with a Toronto celebrity.”
And, in regular celebrity vogue, Romano is sometimes recognized by lovers in general public when she’s walking around in the city.
“I feel when I commenced the fame journey, I didn’t realize how substantially social interaction there would be when you are a famous individual. So I obtain it a bit awkward,” she explained. “But for the most portion, I like it.”
You under no circumstances know what you will see scrolling as a result of her account, with information ranging from filling a prescription to attending influencer functions, to clips of her “feminist household” where by she jokes her fiancé, David, pays for almost everything. Their “children,” two sphinx cats named Jojo and Raisin, are often featured and have created a admirer foundation of their personal.
In actuality, the two could be listened to meowing in the background through Romano’s interview.
“Whenever my movies aren’t executing that very good, I’m like, ‘Babe, we need to have to do a voice-above jointly,’” Romano explained. “But (David) loves it for me. He also likes that I have a interest that is not just, like, viewing Actual Housewives.”
Her supervisor, Alexa Burban of Platform Media & Administration Inc, has also turn out to be element of Romano’s narrative on TikTok, with Romano typically joking that Burban is yelling at her driving the scenes to movie written content to create up her brand.
“I was sending her profiles of people who I believed she could be comparable to, and she has kind of finished rather a great deal the full opposite,” Burban mentioned. “But she’s undertaking it in her personal way. And she’s proudly owning it.”
Romano’s information is mainly comedic and lighthearted, but she is not scared of becoming earnest on the platform — she’s documented the trials and tribulations of remaining a total-time corporate attorney on Bay Road and becoming reprimanded at do the job for her online existence.
She finally quit her corporate work, and now performs as a attorney at a non-profit authorized clinic by day and moonlights as a information creator.
“Everyone on TikTok is like, ‘I just can’t believe you have been a (corporate) lawyer.’ And I’m like, ‘I really do not want to converse about it.’”
Romano may possibly have generally been destined to be well-known — just after all, she shares genetics with her expert athlete brother, Jordan Romano, a pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays.
But she’s coming for his thunder.
“He’s like, ‘Literally just about every single working day when I’m in the bullpen, somebody is yelling at me that I am @julesthelawyers’s brother,’” Romano mentioned. “I would sense terrible, but increasing up getting the sister of a baseball participant, everyone’s like, ‘How’s Jordan? How’s Jordan?’ Like, I’m excellent, much too. So now, he’s having it again.”
He’s also receiving shade on TikTok too.
Persons at the Rogers Centre normally film videos of Jays games expressing they are at a @julesthelawyer fulfill and greet when Romano steps up to the pitch and their very last name is plastered on the jumbotrons.
“Thought I bought tickets to famous individual @julesthelawyer meet up with and greet but only her brother is right here?” one user captioned a movie of a video game.
“This is my payback,” Romano reported, laughing.
And while she does not see herself quitting her career as a attorney to be a comprehensive-time written content creator, she’s proud of sticking with it, no matter of what her aged career imagined about her passion.
Romano advised her followers about her job interview with the Star, saying that it was a special minute for her and described having psychological for the duration of the conversation.
“Vindicated,” she said. “I am vindicated.”
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