The former businessman opened up about his religious journey in his first interview since officially becoming a Catholic priest
Credit: Today/YouTube
NEED TO KNOW
- Scott-Vincent Borba shared an update on his life in his first interview since becoming an ordained priest
- The e.l.f. Cosmetics co-founder, who stepped away from the brand in 2019, was ordained as a Catholic priest in his hometown of Visalia, Calif. on May 23
- He opened up to Today about his spiritual journey and how he built a new life after realizing his “soul was in hell”
Scott-Vincent Borba, who co-founded e.l.f. Cosmetics in 2004 but left in 2019, is sharing a glimpse into his spiritual journey to priesthood.
The former businessman, 52, announced this past May that he was making a career jump from the beauty industry to the church. Following his ordination as a Catholic priest, performed by the Diocese of Fresno in his hometown of Visalia, Calif., on May 23, Borba took part in his first interview since on Today, opening up about why he made the spiritual leap.
"God sanctified this whole route to bring me back now to glorify His name versus to glorify myself or idolize the businesses that I was creating," Borba said of his television appearance before detailing the pivotal moment that inspired his life's transformation.
At the time, Borba was hosting a party at his home in the Hollywood Hills, but he was "so void of love and happiness." He felt a calling to reflect on his life's purpose and asked himself, "If this is what God created me for, is just to be hedonist, to make money and to live life and party and then repeat, why did he create me? Why did he create the human race?"
The moment he called his "conversion" was when he told God, "help me to be the man you created me to be."
He experienced an "enlightenment of soul" and realized that his "soul was in hell" and that he was "living in hell on Earth" because of the decisions he made along the way. "Even though I thought I was a good person, that wasn't enough. God showed me his love and mercy is bigger than your past," Borba shared. "He can take a broken person and change it."
When asked by co-anchor Craig Melvin on advice he'd offer to others, Borba, who described himself as being in a "spiritual gutter," said, "[God] wants us to know He is real, He is alive and is intimately active in this world. There is no sin that he cannot forgive."
Borba founded the cruelty-free makeup brand e.l.f. Cosmetics — which stands for “Eyes Lips Face” — with father and son Alan and Joseph Shamah in 2004. The brand was successful by the mid-2010s, due to its affordable prices and ethical products, reaching $100 million in sales by 2014, according to Forbes.
In a CBS 47 interview in 2019, he announced his commitment to the ministry after giving up his makeup fortune and departing from his previous life. (According to ABC 30, he also sold his car and donated the proceeds.)
"I was vapid. I had a perverse life," he shared. "I went to L.A., I got sucked into the Hollywood lifestyle — it was almost to a point where I was trying to sell my soul, right, for all of the riches of the world, which is not what we're supposed to be … I was living for myself … I was a poster boy for luxury."
Borba said that he had felt a calling of becoming a priest "ever since I can remember" and "finally accepted the call about maybe three years ago."
"I asked our Lord to help me be the man that he created me to be. And upon that instance, I had this massive flood of love and mercy that came into my life,” Borba explained. “It was a very mystical experience.”
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