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20—SATURDAY Vanguard, JUNE 1, 2019
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How my nude live video
with MC Galaxy affected
me —Etinosa
•Shares lessons from
her failed marriage
•Etinosa
By JULIET EBIRIM
Etinosa Idemudia
is a Nigerian
actress, social
media influencer,
film maker and
internet celebrity.
The beautiful
and playful
engineerturnedactress
became the
topic of social
m e d i a
discussion recently after a video of
her going fully naked on singer, MC
Galaxy’s Instagram live feed filtered
into the internet. In this interview,
Etinosa whose marriage to a
military personnel crashed due
to domestic violence shares her
lessons, challenges, mistakes,
love life and plans.
How has life been
generally?
Life has been filled with ups
and downs, challenges and
victories. Life has been good
to me. My life has been filled
with the grace of God and a
lot of miracles. My life is a
testimony, right from my birth
to my travails. And of course,
my present career has been
nothing but a miracle.
What are you working on at the
moment?
I’m actually working on two
projects at the moment. One is
‘Charlie Charlie’ by Charles
Uwagbai. The other is ‘Game Up’
directed by Okechukwu Oku aka
‘The Oracle’. ‘Charlie Charlie’ is an
action-comedy that seeks to create
awareness on immigration
malpractices, money laundering,
human trafficking and so on. “Game
up” is about a very notorious couple
who scam people for a living, until
they also ended up getting
scammed.
How would you sum up the
journey so far?
The journey has not been without
its challenges. I would say it has
been very fast, which is like a
miracle, like I said earlier. Every
journey is in stages, from the lows
•Etinosa
to the
highs,
probably
w i t h
s o m e
hiccups on
the way,
especially if
the journey is
in Nigeria,
with bad roads
(Laughs), you’ll
experience
gallops here and
there. I thank God
for grace and that
success is not a
destination. It is a
continuous journey
and my journey keeps
getting better and better. I wouldn’t
really say there’s been any setbacks,
I would say mostly lessons learnt.
In terms of challenges, pushing and
promoting a brand is not usually
very easy in Nigeria, because so
many parameters are set for you to
just fail. Unfortunately, bad news
and unfortunate events sell more
and are promoted more. Negativity
is given more push. Pushing a brand
can be really challenging, but with
the grace of God we are able to pull
through.
When did the big break come for
you?
That would definitely be the
release of my movie “The
Washerman” in August last year.
It completely changed my life. It
changed my career status and
promoted me so greatly. I would
say the release of “The
Washerman” did that magic for
me.
What has fame robbed you of?
Fame has robbed me of the chance
or the room to play and be myself
freely in public and even in private.
Because of fame, sometimes I want
to dance in a public place and my
friends will remind me to
“package”. Now I have to think
about how my actions would be
misconstrued and so I just respect
myself and not dance. Normally, I
like to be free, to play and interact
with people, even those I don’t know
from anywhere in a controlled
environment.
What’s the worst rumour you’ve
heard about yourself?
That would have to be me hearing
that when I was in the university, I
had series of abortions and I was like
Haaa! How?! (Laughs) Till now I
have never had an abortion. That
rumour was too crazy, because you
know “In every rumour, there’s an
atom of truth”. But there was no
atom of truth in that at all.
Sometimes, I sit down and ask
myself who sat down to construct
this kind of story. Some people are
jobless oo...
Any regrets?
I don’t have any regrets. I only
have lessons learned. I feel
everything that has happened to me
in life was destined to happen. They
were pre-arranged towards a
certain purpose. I don’t regret
anything. If I were to go back in time,
I don’t think I would change
anything. I would probably change
my bank account balance (Laughs).
What are lessons learnt from your
failed marriage?
Character, attitude, behaviour,
habits that come around to ruin a
marriage, don’t just come from
nowhere in a marriage. They’ve
always been there. We’ve always
known that this person was like this.
We all see the signs before we get
married, but I don’t know if it’s
pressure or the butterflies in the
tummy, that makes us overlook them
and be like “Let me just manage this
one”. You keep managing and then,
one day, you wake up and realise
that you are about to die, you can no
longer manage and you want to
leave. The lesson here is : You see
the traits in a person before getting
married to that person. You know
yourself, what you can take, what you
don’t want and what can kill you. If
you see those traits, it’s best to walk
away before it gets ugly, while
everybody is still in love and friendly
with each other. “Find your level/
square-root”! Don’t go and force
yourself when you’re seeing the bad
characters/things and ugly pictures
of that person and still believe you’ll
make it work. No, you’ll just kill
yourself or end up with a shattered
marriage. “A stitch in time saves
In every rumour,
there’s an atom
of truth”. But
there was no
atom of truth in
that at all
nine”.
My own
is, you walk out
in time saves your body.
Are you in talking terms with your
ex-husband?
No, I’m not in talking terms with
him.
Are you in a relationship at the
moment?
I’m dating at the moment. I won’t
call it a relationship, but yes, I’m
dating.
Regarding the controversial nude
live video with MC Galaxy, how
were you able to handle it and move
on from the scandal?
With the support of friends and
family, I put aside all the noise
around me and negative backlash
and I focused on my work.
Thankfully, I’m a very busy person,
I have a lot of things to keep me busy
and not things to remind me of who
I was, but who I am. Circumstances
around you should never ever define
you. Irrespective of what has
happened, I’m still who I am. I’m
still a great person, a star and a
content producer. So I focused on
doing just that, doing my work and
minding my business.
How did it affect you personally
and your career in general?
Emotionally, yes it affected me.
Psychologically, maybe, yes. It had
positive and negative effects, mostly
positive and I’m happy about that.
Do you still share a cordial
relationship with MC Galaxy?
May 2 nd was his birthday. We are
in touch and I wish him well. We are
good, we are friends. No bad blood.
Moving on, what’s next for you?
Like I said, Charlie Charlie is
going to be released in the cinemas
hopefully in September, so I’m
working very hard with Charles
Uwagbai to make sure this comes
through. I’m also working on my TV
series which has been on the downlow
as well. Also, there are a couple
of brands I represent and work with
closely right now for promotion and
that’s what is going to be taking most
of my time from here on.