Sofia Belórf [or aka Sofia Jessica Belórf-Nousiainen, formerly Sofia Ruusila-Nousiainen] is a Finnish-Moroccan fitness athlete, model, social media personality, and entrepreneur. Belórf came to the media limelight after she won the Bikini Fitness World Championship in November 2015 at the IFBB World Championships in Hungary. Belórf also won the Miss Helsinki competition in 2010.
Belórf has her own TV programme called Sofia’s Secrets on Discovery Plus Finland. Since 2015, she has also worked as a fitness coach at Fit by Sofia and has published a book with the same title. Belórf has constantly been in Finnish tabloids for her relationships and a wide number of controversies.
Early life and education
Sofia Belórf was born on April 6, 1990, in Ylivieska, Finland, and spent most of her childhood there. Her mother is Finnish and her father is an immigrant from Morocco. Her parents divorced when she was still in primary school. In media interviews, Belórf has said that she has not been in touch with her father since she was 12 and that he was a bad example as a father. Belórf has a younger brother, Amin Ruusila.
Belórf has also said in interviews that she experienced a lot of bullying in elementary school and felt like an outsider all the time because of her family background and her dark brown appearance. In the small town of Ylivieska, there were not many multicultural families in the 1990s. The divorce of her parents and the bullying at school left Belórf traumatised.
In December 2016, she changed her surname from Ruusila-Nousiainen to Belórf-Nousiainen, and in business dealings she only used Belórf. Ruusila was her mother’s surname and Belórf was her Morrocan father’s last name. Whereas, Nousiainen came from her first husband Niko Nousiainen.
| |
| Personal details: | |
| Born | Sofia Jessica Ruusila Belórf April 6, 1990 |
| Profession |
|
| Notable work (s)/Famous for |
|
| Siblings | Amin Ruusila |
| Relationships(s) |
|
| Residence(s) | Helsinki, Finland |
| Nationality | Finnish |
| Ethnicity | Mixed (Finnish-Morrocan) |
| Zodiac sign | Aries |
| Sexual orientation | Straight |
| Body measurement |
|
| Net Worth |
|
| Religion | Christian |
| Website & Social Media links | |
(In this video from MTV Uutiset, Belórf reveals how she faced her bully after a gap of many years.) | |
Professional career
Belórf’s professional career has revolved mainly around entertainment and sports. In 2010, she grabbed the title of Miss Helsinki, and in 2011, appeared in music videos of two popular Finnish rappers Cheek and Uniik. She has also appeared in music videos of American rapper French Montana as well as of JVG and Evelina. In 2013, Belórf won the amateur title of the Model America series at the Fitness America Weekend event in Las Vegas.
2015 was a fateful year for Belórf as far as her professional career is concerned. In April 2015, she was placed second in the IFBB Fitness Classic and won the Finnish championship at the Nordic Fitness Expo event a few months later. Her popularity began to grow further as she was chosen by the American Oxygen magazine as a fitness model.
In 2016, Belórf published a book called Fit by Sofia. The book began with Belórf’s own personal story and focused on topics of fitness training, physical wellbeing, motivation, self-confidence, beauty makeup, sports, and nutrition. Fit by Sofia had moderate commercial success and is still sold in Finland. Belórf later made the name a brand name for her fitness training business.
In 2020, Belórf launched her own reality TV series called Sofia’s Secrets. Discovery+ Finland broadcasts the programme.
In March 2021, a book called Hesburgerking came to the market under Belórf’s name. Belórf however revealed that she had never written such a book and that had submitted an investigation request to the Helsinki police.
Sofia Belórf: failed relationships, criminal charges, and other controversies
In 2012, Belórf married Niko Nousiainen, a Finnish radio journalist and reality TV presenter, in a minutely planned wedding ceremony in Helsinki. Belórf and Nousiainen often participated in reality TV programmes together as a couple, including in the TV5 channel’s Tavallistä Elämä (Ordinary Life) series. Their marriage lasted for five years as in April 2017, the couple announced their separation. Due to a lengthy court process involved, the divorce was approved by the court only in November 2018.
After divorcing Nousiainen, Belórf began seeing Niko Ranta-aho. With Ranta-aho, she lived in Puerto Banús, Marbella, Spain. Belórf and Ranta-aho were never married but lived in a common-law relationship.
In July 2019, Belórf and Ranta-aho were embroiled in a high-profile drug and money-laundering case in Finland. The scandal, known as Katiska, was the most prominent case in the Finnish drug criminal history. Finnish authorities accused Belórf of money laundering, while Ranta-aho was investigated for serious drug crimes and doping offences. It was also revealed that authorities carried out an extensive search of their residence in Spain. Several media outlets in Finland also reported that Ranta-aho had physically assaulted and abused Belórf a month prior to their arrest.
In a 2022 documentary Katiska 2, Belórf said that her life in Spain was excellent and as a couple, she and Ranta-aho lived a very normal and structured life. In addition, she also said that she had no idea that Ranta-aho was secretly involved in criminal activity.
I was immensely proud that everyone else’s boyfriends were criminals, and I thought, my boyfriend was a decent, Finnish businessman.
Despite Belórf pleading non-guilty, she was charged with two counts of money laundering and a drug offence. She was, however, able to get bail and was released from pre-trial detention on July 27, 2019. In April 2021, the Helsinki District Court gave Belórf an 80-day suspended prison sentence for money laundering and drug offences. Belórf and Ranta-aho got separated in April 2020.
Belórf had a brief, but intensely publicized relationship with Stefan Therman, a Finnish businessman. Therman is a real state agent and lives mostly in Dubai. Belórf and Therman broke up in October 2020.
