Morgantown native who found out she was an African princess continues advocating for cultural understanding

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — During a search for her birth family, a Morgantown woman learned that she was a princess in Sierra Leone, West Africa, and now, her goals in life have shifted completely.

During an interview on the Tamron Hall Show that aired this week on ABC, Princess Sarah Culberson said that her life “completely changed overnight,” after hiring a private investigator in 2004. She went from studying classical theater to bringing clean water to people in West Africa.

Culberson was first featured on Tamron Hall in 2020 when she explained how she dropped her Hollywood dream to help her birth father and the Mende tribe. At that time, she had helped dig nine wells to supply thousands of people with clean drinking water.

Now, she hosts a podcast called “Modern Royalty” where she talks to other people who had a similar “Princess Diaries” experience and learned they were royal later in life. She said the goal of the podcast is to bring royal people from across the world together.

“How can we all come together and be one? Because our world needs that right now. So that’s what we’re looking at with this podcast,” she said.

You can check out her podcast here .

Princess Sarah was born and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia and was put in foster care by her parents when she was nine months old. She was later adopted by a Morgantown family and attended University High School and West Virginia University before seeking more information about her lineage.

She now is based in Los Angeles and is a public speaker, writer and actress who continues to fulfill her roles as “Lady of Bumpe” or princess in Sierra Leone. Although no longer based in West Virginia, she has returned to the Mountain State for events, including one for West Virginia University’s Week of Purpose in 2022 that 12 News attended .

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