Why I love tattoos
I don’t really have as many tattoos as
people think I do. I just have three on me and they all have their
significance. The one on my hand is a rose and it signifies love. The
one on my chest is a crown and it means that I am a queen in whatever I
do – I call the shots. The one I have on my back means that I see you
even though you think I don’t. I see everything you are doing, so watch
it. They all have meaning and I am just someone who loves tattoos. There
are no negative reasons I love them. I am not the only one wearing a
tattoo, there are so many celebrities, both local and foreign, who wear
them. It is just something I like. I can not describe why I like it. I
feel it is sexy.
Life as a single mother
My daughter is an award-winning actress.
She is going to be 12 but she is not a full time actress. She is still a
baby and I try to restrict her acting so that she can concentrate more
on her studies. Once in a while, we allow her act and only when she is
on holidays. It has to be once in a while. When I started, it was a bit
stressful because my kids were quite young. I had to be a working mother
and business woman at the same time. I am someone who always strives
for perfection. I am a very organised person. I draw out my time-table. I
have a schedule of my day-to-day life so I am never caught unawares.
That is why I don’t work too much. If I have planned my month and a
sudden job comes up, I will not take it. I always have a schedule I
follow in life and it has always helped me. When I am working, I know
how to place my kids in the right place, sometimes with my mother. When
they were much younger, they used to go with me but because of school,
they stayed with my mother. I have some of my sisters that stay around.
Now, my kids have grown up because my boy is 14 years old and the girl
is 12 and they are both in secondary school. They take care of
themselves more now. Apart from that, I still try to spend time at home
more than I used to when they were younger because they need my
attention now. I need to be sure that they are studying. They are
becoming teenagers. Teenage pressure could be much on them so I have to
be the father and mother to them at all times. It was not easy initially
but as time goes on, you learn how to manage it. It becomes easy as
time goes on.
Their father
I relate with their father. I do not
talk about it because I give respect to my children, it is their privacy
and they want to keep it private. Like I said, we were not just
compatible, I met him and in a very short period of time, we got
married. We really did not have much time to date. I was 21 years old
then. In less than three months, I was pregnant and in less than six
months, I was married to him. It was a very short period of time. We
basically got married because of the pregnancy. We did not want to have
the baby out of wedlock. We got married and we later discovered that
there was some part of him that I did not like and there were certain
things about me that he did not also like. We were not friends and that
was the disadvantage. He was not my first, he was actually my third. I
feel apart with my first boyfriend. My second boyfriend, we did not get
intimate. So my ex was actually the second but my third boyfriend. I was
young, I had my first boyfriend when I was in SS3 and I was about 18
years old. Then we broke up and I had somebody else. We were more like
brothers and sisters in Christ so we really did not have any sexual
relationship. Then, I met my ex-husband. He was the second man I was
intimate with when it came to a relationship. I was young and the kind
of life he wanted was to be married and still live the bachelor life
while I wanted him to be married and stay at home. That was were we
started having issues and problems but we are still friends. He still
communicates with his kids.
Regrets
I do not regret leaving the marriage
because I am better off. I regret rushing into marriage, but I do not
use the word ‘regret’ anymore. It has become a lesson; I had to learn
from that. Every disappointment is a blessing. Even though I felt
disappointed that I got married at a young age and did not get to study
the man I got married to and whose name I bear now, I still profited
from it by having two wonderful kids. It is more than any other thing in
life.
I vowed never to get married again
I said so back then when I was
disappointed. When you are going into a marriage with so much
expectation, hoping that is where you will end your life, you try all
your best to make it work. If it does not work, you begin to have
problems. Why I came back to the industry was because I found out that
my marriage was not working. My job had nothing to do with my marriage. I
knew my marriage was collapsing. I just needed something to keep me
going. Since I had so much love for acting, I felt I should go back to
what gave me so much happiness and joy because I knew that my home was
not giving me that joy I needed. I felt it was not enough for me to
sacrifice what would give me joy when I knew the reason why I was
sacrificing it was not being appreciated.
I am an emotional person
I am a very emotional person. I am very
loving but I am a one-way traffic kind of person. When I am in love, I
am fully in love with the person. I give my best to the relationship. I
am a very lovey-dovey kind of person and I love my man to always be
there for me. Sometimes, it seems as if I am over-possessive. It is not
that I am over possessive, I am just someone who wants to give
everything into the relationship and expects to get the same back. When I
do not get the same, I start having problems with that person. That is
why I find it difficult to say I want to settle with a person. To me,
marriage is a 50-50 thing. If I put in my 50, you have to put in your
50. In a situation where you cannot give me 50, then we are going to
have a problem.
Rumours about me
I have cleared the air about so many
things. When I was growing up and I read some things about certain
people, I always used to say that there would be an element of truth in
every rumour. If they talk about me and Muka Ray, I understand because
we are very close. In this society, when a man and a woman are very
close, people tend to think that they are dating. That is
understandable, but when it comes to the case of someone like Pasuma, it
is very strange to me. He never asked me out, we are friends but not as
close as people portray it. For crying out loud, we are not dating. I
don’t have an intention of dating him and I am sure that he does not
too. He is my friend, maybe because I have been to one or two of his
events. He respects me and I do too but just as a friend. He is a friend
and a brother; nothing beyond that. Muka Ray and I became very close
and working business partners. My boyfriend understands that. He did not
bring me into the industry. He helped me because he was there before
me. He helped me grow. I came into the industry myself and I got into
the Yoruba movie industry through Alhaji Taiwo Hassan, Ogogo, in 2001.
Bimbo Akintola brought me into the industry when I joined AGN in 1998.
About a year after I joined the Yoruba movie industry, I met Muka who
believed he could help me build my career. I told him I wanted to be a
producer and he told me that it was good as he was also a producer. He
said we could work hand in glove and that is what we have been doing.
Sometimes he works, I contribute; I work and he contributes, both
financially and physically. I am not dating any politician. Can’t I
afford a car and a house? I am a producer, I produced about 13 movies
and I’m not from a poor background. Whatever it is that I have today, I
started with my father’s money. I am okay on my own. So nobody has to
get me a car or a house.
My father
I come from a very well-to-do family. My
grand father was very okay – Adekunle Ogunro. We are a very comfortable
family. My father was a very lively man who lived life to the fullest.
People call me daddy’s girl. My father ‘met money at home’, his parents
were very wealthy especially my grandmother. We lived in Obanikoro. My
father was someone who was so much into enjoying life that it cut his
life short. He did everything in excess -drinking, smoking, spending
money and having fun. I appreciate my dad for the fact that he was my
father and we were more like friends. He also had me when he was young.
He was 21 years old when he had my brother and 22 when he had me. He
lost his life at a very young age, that is why whatever I do, I don’t
get addicted. I don’t drink too much if I have to. I don’t smoke at all,
only when I am on set and I have to. I don’t do drugs, never have and
never will. When he died, there was some money left for us. His own
money. It was shared between my brother and I. It is that money I used
to start my life and business – a better apartment, a shop, I travelled.
My first car was from my father’s money.
About my boyfriend
He is a very caring person. It was not
easy for him. He was really after me because when men come, I shut them
off. I always put this defensive mechanism up. He was very patient and
came in a very soft manner. We started as friends and we became lovers.
His relationship with my kids is wonderful. My kids love him. He is a
very busy person but any little time he has, he comes to see them and
takes care of them. We have been together for a while. I keep my
relationship very private. I made it public at a time and it was very
stressful. When it is private, you enjoy it more because there are no
third parties. He understands the nature of my job. He understands where
I am coming from and I understand his too.
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