Man Worked in Finance by Day, Filmed Makeup Tutorials as an ‘Escape’ Each Night. Now He Has Over 5M Followers (Exclusive)

Aditya Madiraju’s appreciation for makeup began when he was a little boy, watching his mom put on her favorite red lipstick every day. 

“That’s where I first discovered makeup. Back in the day, in India, it wasn’t okay for guys to wear makeup, especially little boys,” he tells PEOPLE. “While I was in class, I took makeup as a way of, as an art, as my artistic escape.”

“With makeup, that journey is truly what the satisfaction is. Every single day, I learn something new,” he continues. “I post something that helps somebody else. That is very gratifying to me as an artist.”

While Madiraju, 37, was first introduced to makeup by his mother, he honed his craft by watching YouTube and Instagram tutorials, eventually leading him to start sharing his own.

“I still struggle with eyeshadow blending, but that’s my trademark now,” he says. “The mistakes I made become my own.”

One of the reasons Madiraju started posting his life and work online was due to the attention he got from his 2019 traditional Desi wedding.

At the time, Madiraju and husband Amit Shah noted that it was “unheard of” for members of the South Asian LGBTQ+ community to get married in a Hindu temple at the time — a large part of the reason the wedding went so viral — and was even covered by PEOPLE!

After photos of the stunning ceremony started circulating online, Madiraju says people started following his social media accounts.

“We were just regular people, and we didn’t know what to do with that audience who were giving us love,” Madiraju shares.

“The only thing I knew how to do was makeup, but I was too scared to put it on my own face. My husband said, ‘Why don’t you put makeup on and teach people what you have learned?'” he recalls. “I was like, ‘I’m scared.’ He said, ‘You’re front-page news for marrying a guy. What else are you scared about?’ ”

At the time, Madiraju had a full-time job in finance, spending his days crunching numbers and his nights filming content.

“I used to do the finance in the morning and then in the evening, at 7 p.m., I used to start filming,” he shares. “That was my escape. It has always been my escape, even now.”

“People say, ‘We take a break from social media when we feel stressed, or we just want to feel Zen.’ I go to social media, and I post a tutorial when I want to feel Zen,” Madiraju continues. “Social media and makeup tutorials are my therapy, to be completely honest.” 

In March 2024, he took a leap of faith and quit his high-paying position to pursue makeup and content creation full-time. 

Leaving his job, Madiraju shares, helped him find a “beautiful balance” between spending time with his family and his work. In January 2023, they shared the beginnings of their fertility journey with PEOPLE, and welcomed a daughter later that year.

“We have a daughter, and now I can pick and choose what times I want to work, and when I don’t want to work, and that flexibility is a privilege,” Madiraju says. “There are so many talented people out there, but not everybody gets this. The fact that I’ve gotten this chance where people have loved me for my makeup skills and I get to decide what my day looks like is a privilege, and I feel honored and blessed to have that.”

The job is not without its challenges, however. As a man in a predominantly woman-dominated industry, he has become accustomed to hate comments and vitriol online.

“When my videos go viral, they go viral like in a set of threes. It always ends up on the wrong side of social media, and then you get a lot of hate,” he shares. “But as a creator, you earn a little bit of money on TikTok or these platforms if you’re in the creator rewards fund. There’s a joke I do: I take that money and buy a bag.”

“If the haters are gonna hate, I’m going to buy myself a bag. It’s a sad state, but I am very used to it. It’s my daily life,” he adds.

But for Madiraju, “the blessings outweigh the hate,” and he’ll continue making content no matter who sees it. In a typical week, he usually films around 30 videos, but rarely shares insight about his home life, preferring to keep his content focused on beauty.

“I’m very selective about sharing any of our major moments. We share about our daughter or us once in a while,” he says. “It’s how we are feeling at that point because, as a same-sex couple who has gone through the IVF process, who has done the route of gestation, carrier surrogacy and adding a baby… we had tried for years. That is something that I hold very, very close to my heart.”

“People can come for me, but my family’s off limits. We are very, very selective about that,” he adds.

As for those looking to get into makeup, his advice is to “go slow and try three products at once.” 

“Try to build very slowly what you want your face to look like. If you’re doing skin tint, blush, and maybe your lipstick, try that out for one week, then maybe add a bronzer or subtract, maybe you don’t need a blush,” he shares.

“Everyone’s makeup ritual is very personal, depending on how much time they have. Build it very slowly. Knowing the basics, at least for your face, is very important, learn the ABCDs before you start putting them into a word.”

Madiraju emphasizes that “no one knows their face better than themselves.”

“Everyone will give you 20,000 tips and tricks on how to do your face. You are the best person who can judge that, because it’s your point of view,” he adds. “It’s how you see yourself in the mirror that matters.”

“If you feel comfortable with how you look, what you’re wearing, that is going to become you,” he continues. “That will become your trademark, and then people will fall in love with that. If you come to my page, be prepared to fall in love with yourself.” 

With over 5 million followers across platforms, Madiraju hopes to continue building his brand and inspiring others along the way — eyeing a potential makeup line of his own in the future.

“Right now, I’m in a phase where I’m really enjoying getting to know brands and building my audience, but the goal in the future is to create something, a brand of my own, which is very, very personal to me,” he tells PEOPLE. “The moment people hear the name or know what it is, they will immediately realize that this feels like me in a bottle.”

Until then, Madiraju will continue learning and honing his makeup skills — and adding to his bag collection funded by the naysayers.