In some worse cases, they will even ask you to pay money. Sometimes, they will collect your money to feature you in their film. I didn’t do that one. I saw my friends go through shit in that one. You give maybe 30k, 50k, and they’ll give you the role. That’s how you see some Nollywood films, the person is acting rubbish, you’ll be wondering how they cast this person, they just paid for it.”
Admin l Wednesday, February 22, 2023
LAGOS, Nigeria – Content creator, Chinonso Ukah popularly known as Ada Jesus or Nonso Miraj sits with Chude Jideonwo to discuss the threesome non-scandal, losing her father, and why she left Nollywood.
On the loss of her father, she shared, “It did shake me. I thought I had cried for like two months but I just saw myself creating content the next day. Some weeks back, I was scrolling through Instagram and I realized that my dad died on the 31st of December and I posted a skit on the first of January.
I think he would have wanted me to do that, instead of just sulking and crying. I started skit-making in 2018, but he gave me a year. He said, ‘if you don’t blow within a year, you will go and look for white collar job to do’. So, I started. Opportunities were coming but it wasn’t bringing in money. So, he was just seeing me go to auditions, struggling. But he didn’t stay to see the end of it”.
Chinonso narrated her ordeal dealing with sexual harassment and how it led her to leave Nollywood. ‘It’s not just one person, so everybody has their tactics. The one that will start telling people, ‘this is my girlfriend oh!’. You’ll be shocked, thinking ‘when did I enter a relationship, that I don’t even know about?’ He wants to connect you to somebody, but will tell them ‘My girlfriend is coming to meet you’. I don’t know if it’s like a code. So, when that one (the person you are going to meet) hears ‘my girlfriend’, he feels like you’re easily accessible.
Then you go there and then he starts making advances. In some worse cases, they will even ask you to pay money. Sometimes, they will collect your money to feature you in their film. I didn’t do that one. I saw my friends go through shit in that one. You give maybe 30k, 50k, and they’ll give you the role. That’s how you see some Nollywood films, the person is acting rubbish, you’ll be wondering how they cast this person, they just paid for it.”
Chinonso also added that she had to keep all that was happening to her from parents, as they would have insisted that she considered alternative source of income.
“So, when I saw that it was a consistent thing, that they were doing in Nollywood, I just washed my hand like this and said I’m not doing again and that’s why I left”, she added.
On the threesome non-scandal pushed by a popular blog about Ada Jesus, her friend and a popular politician, she shared, “people were advising me not to comment on that blog but because I know I am so innocent, I went to their DM and told them ‘God will punish you for this thing, you will die’. Later on, I summoned courage, “Nonso, you didn’t do this thing”.
I don’t know the blogger, but whoever is behind it, ‘bring proof!’. Maybe the blog was already dying, and they had to now bring something that would make it trend again. I didn’t like the idea of that, but then again good or bad publicity, it’s all publicity”. Chinonso also shared that she hasn’t met the politician in question yet. “If I see him, I’ll go and hold his leg. I have never met this man before, that is the honest truth”.
Watch the excerpts from the interview here
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