“I knew Kristina was creative, funny, passionate and had so much drive and energy that she would be successful at whatever she chose to do."
“Just three years ago I was sleeping on the floor next to my two children in bunk beds in a dumpy, little apartment and here I was being interviewed by Oprah.”
Phillip Crocco
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FEATURE 35
Instant fame? Felt Fake
Keeping her children’s welfare at the forefront motivated Kristina to work hard at both her part-time jobs. She worked as a waitress, and in time, fell in love and married Philip Crocco. In fact, it was two days after their wedding that he advised Kristina to go for a drive in the couple’s vehicle to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.
“I knew Kristina was creative, funny, passionate and had so much drive and energy that she would be successful at whatever she chose to do,” Crocco said in a phone interview. “I didn’t know at the time how she would do it, and it surprised me how it all came about, but it didn’t surprise me in the slightest how she achieved success. I just knew if she had the opportunity to cultivate it that she’d do something great.”
After driving around for five hours, Kristina made her choice to make cooking videos. A friend helped Kristina shoot, edit and post her cooking videos on YouTube. After two weeks of a slowly growing audience, she was approached by a stranger on her Facebook page to enter a reality television competition sponsored by Oprah Winfrey. After submitting an audition tape, Kristina found herself in an interview with Mark Burnett, the producer of the show and well-known for producing the NBC series, The Voice. His approval sent her face-to-face with TV icon, Oprah.
“I definitely felt like the underdog,” Kristina mused. “Just three years ago I was sleeping on the floor next to my two children in bunk beds in a dumpy, little apartment and here I was being interviewed by Oprah.”