TACOMA — Monique Lemai came to Tacoma this summer to start a business with only $100 in her pocket, a cellphone and a beat-up car. She left 90 days later after displaying the business acumen of a successful entrepreneur and CEO.
Which, it turns out, she actually was.
Lemai’s real name is Monique Idlett-Mosley,
“Undercover Billionaire,” the business version of “Naked and Afraid,” shot an episode over the summer featuring Idlett-Mosley, 46. The former music industry exec and business tycoon is the ex-wife of music producer Tim “Timbaland” Mosley. She’s used to living the good life.
Each episode of the Discovery Channel show, about to begin its second season, is built around a self-made business person who is dropped in a city they’ve never been before with only the bare essentials. They are not allowed to contact or use any people or resources from their real life.
“Then they have 90 days to build a million dollar business,” said executive producer and show runner Tim Warren. “She has to figure it out.”
For Idlett-Mosley, that city was Tacoma.
The show was shot July through October. The episode premieres Jan. 6.
“Undercover Billionaire” aims to prove that a person doesn’t need an Ivy League school degree or a lot of seed money to start a business. The show, Warren said, is aspirational. So is Idlett-Mosley. She is not yet a billionaire.
“I’m a millionaire who will be a billionaire one day,” she said in an interview with The News Tribune in early December.
After an executive career in marketing with “USA TODAY,” Idlett-Mosley moved into the music industry.
In recent years, she’s transitioned into a full-time role running a tech fund that empowers up and coming new businesses, Reign Ventures.
“Reign Ventures represents the ability to invest in overlooked founders, women and people of color,” she said. “We get in there at the very earliest stage.”
That made her the ideal candidate for “Undercover Billionaire.”
“I’m a constant student of life, who likes to share whatever access and resources that I’ve learned or work for,” Idlett-Mosley said. “And so I truly have always made it my responsibility to make sure that as I grow, that I’m making sure others grow.”
The cover story for the camera crew that followed her around Tacoma was that they were filming a documentary on small business people across the country, Warren said.
The business Idlett-Mosley started is a secret until the show airs. But Warren said “Undercover Billionaire” is more than just reality TV.
“The whole thing with this show is, it’s not a show,” Warren said. Meaning that Idlett-Mosley left a lasting impact and a living business behind in Tacoma.
Warren said he chose Tacoma for Idlett-Mosley because of its rich history, its ethnic diversity, varied businesses and its comeback from decades of hard times.
“The show highlights Tacoma in an incredibly positive light and really shows just how amazing the city is, not only to live but to build a business there,” Warren said.
While undercover is in the show’s name there’s little deceit in Idlett-Mosley.
“Ninety-nine percent of everything that Monique says about herself, and what she believes is true,” Warren said. “The only thing that she’s not saying is true, is what her real name is and that she’s actually very successful. And she was married to Timbaland.”
Complicating matters was the ongoing pandemic.
Idlett-Mosley, a Miami resident, said she doesn’t live in excess. But she doesn’t live in poverty either. But relocating to a rental house on Tacoma’s eastside wasn’t difficult.
“Yes, I’ve had access to a fabulous lifestyle,” she said. “But, I have always understood that my purpose in life is so much bigger than things. And so that wasn’t a shock for me.”
The shock came when she realized she couldn’t use the social and business contacts she had built up over the decades.
“I no longer had my connections,” she said.
Idlett-Mosley was dazzled at first by Tacoma’s location between Puget Sound and snow capped mountains.
“And you’re like, oh, wait a second,” she said. “I’m not on vacation and I cannot tap my red shoes.”
She first began building contacts in Tacoma’s churches. A publicity photo released by Discovery shows Idlett-Mosley with Gregory Christopher, the pastor of Tacoma’s Shiloh Baptist Church, inside what appears to be a shoe store.
Neither Idlett-Mosley nor Warren will reveal the type of business started.
“I challenged myself and created a business model that I have never been a part of,” is all she will say.
Nobody figured out who she was during the filming.
“When the reveal happened … I think that some people were really shocked and some people were like, I knew it was something,” she said. “They just didn’t know what it was.”
She received nothing but support during her time in Tacoma, she said.
“Even during a pandemic and everyone having their own struggles, everyone who I came in contact with was willing to support my struggle,” she said. “And that, to me, is what community is all about.”
The experience has forever changed her, she said.
“I truly don’t believe I could have done this challenge anywhere else,” she said. “I have friends and family for life now in Tacoma.”
Idlett-Mosley now visits Tacoma about once a month to check in on the new business.
“We don’t stop just because the cameras did,” she said.
