Before Maria Sharapova Was a Tennis Star, She Wanted to Be A…

Published Sep 25, 2019

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5:30pm

Before Maria Sharapova was a tennis star and the founder of a chic candy company (Sugarpova, for those unfamiliar), she had dreams of being something totally unexpected.

When PureWow chatted with the 32-year-old five-time Grand Slam winner about her recently launched Sugarpova all-natural organic, non-GMO, soy-free and gluten-free gummy collection (which are delicious, BTW), she revealed she originally wanted to create homes for a living.

“Growing up, I really wanted to be an architect. That was my real passion,” Sharapova recalled.

Because of her tennis career, Sharapova was able to experience different kinds of architecture during her travels and developed a keen sense of design from a young age.

“I think I acquired a certain taste and aesthetic while I was traveling because I understood what I didn’t like more than what I liked,” she explained. “And then when I had the opportunity and made the money to build my own home, it was really a labor of love.”

Her house, by the way, is so stunning that it was recently featured on the cover of Architectural Digest.

You see what we mean?

Sharapova described her personal home design style as “very minimal but warm and detail oriented. I look toward more of a Scandinavian and Japanese mix of influences and maybe Belgian as well.”

The Sugarpova founder worked with an interior decorator for her home but noted that “a home is never really finished.” “I come home and think, ‘Oh, there’s that nook in the corner that could really use something I saw at the market in Paris.’ It’s always an evolution and that’s what I love about design,” she shared.

Evolution is something that’s also played a role in her company, which she launched in 2012. The idea for a candy company was born out of a memory from her early years in the United States when she saw people putting whatever kind of candy they wanted in bags at a movie theater. It was something she’d never seen in her homeland of Russia, but when she would have a good practice, her parents would reward her with a lollipop or chocolate bar. Now, Sharapova owns her line of chocolates, truffles and gummies galore, the most recent of which took two years to perfect.

Lex Goodman

Cat mom, yogi, brunch enthusiast

Lex is an LA native who's deeply obsessed with picnics, Slim Aarons, rosé, Hollywood history and Joan Didion. She joined PureWow in early 2017.

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