Nigerian Celebrities Attack Marriage After Failed Relationships
Divorce and break-ups can turn anyone’s world upside down and trigger all sorts of painful and unsettling emotions. This appears to be the case with Nigerian celebrities whose marriages or love affairs came to unexpected end.
The experiences of some of these celebrities have led them to attack conventional wisdom about the marriage institution. Considering that these celebrities have large followers on social media who may be influenced by their views, it may not be unreasonable to interpret their comments as an attack on marriage.
Advertisement
However, not all Nigerian celebrity marriages crash. Some celebrity marriages have stood the test of time while others crashed like a pack of badly stacked cards.
THE WHISTLER brings you some of the most outrageous comments made by Nigerian celebrities.
Mercy Aigbe: Marriage Is Overrated
Actress and filmmaker, Mercy Aigbe, who has passed through two failed marriages and got separated from her last husband, Lanre Gentry, in 2018, has this to say:
Advertisement
“Our mothers brought us up, as women, to take whatever our partners do to us. They tell us to take it because we want to remain in a man’s house. To me, it is not an achievement. Let’s just say as it is marriage is overrated. It takes two people to make it work: it’s not just about the women. But everybody keeps heaping all the responsibilities on the woman. That shouldn’t be.
“I have been through domestic violence and I came out strong. I would love to see the end of domestic violence in society. It wasn’t easy for me because society always shames one. Everybody believes if one is experiencing domestic violence, one has to be patient as a woman and take it all to remain in one’s husband’s house. A lot of people have lost their lives as a result of domestic violence. And religion is not helping. An assaulted woman could go to her pastor and the cleric would say, ‘Oh madam, you need to keep praying’. Is it until she loses her life?”
Ini Edo: Full Of Regrets
The Nollywood actress got married to an American-based Nigerian businessman, Phillip in 2008. She walked out of the marriage in September 2014, following accusations of domestic violence and cheating.
She has this to say: “He met me an actress and I believe he was okay with that. Actually, he complained. My work takes my time and interferes with so many things.
Advertisement
“I try not to regret (the time I spent in marriage) but I will say, it’s been an experience I have learnt a lot from. It made me a stronger person. It made me wiser and I think it actually made me more mature.”
Tonto Dike: Marriage Is Getting Into Wrong Hands
Nigerian actress Tonto Charity Dike was formerly married to Olakunle Churchill, but it lasted for only two years from 2015 to 2017.
She said: “This is the thing most of our actresses go through but nobody says anything. We get so lonely and when we need somebody to hold onto, we get into the wrong hands.
“Half of us have married ‘Yahoo’ boys. Most of them are just walking away because it is too shameful for them, but I have no shame; I will talk because I don’t have any shame in my life. I don’t because if this man is arrested tomorrow, they will link him to me because I was once married to him.”
Advertisement
Daddy Freez: Marriage Not A Yardstick For Achievement
On Air personality, Ifedayo Olarinde, popularly known as Daddy Freeze, who is married and had never gone through a divorce, added his voice to the attack on marriage. He said:
“Marriage is NOT an achievement.
“We need to re-evaluate our priorities as a people. We need to get out of our current mind space, where marriage is used as a metric to determine the achievement of an individual; especially female.
“Our priority should be uplifting our nation and humanity as a whole, not contributing our quota to population growth.
“The myth that marriage makes people responsible has long outlived its value, same applies to the statement “be fruitful and multiply” which was very valid when Adam, Eve and Noah had to replenish the earth, but has negative consequences when the world population currently stands at 7.53 billion.”
