Nollywood actress Ini Edo, who has been active for well over a decade, is among the most well-known figures in the field. She is one lady who has undoubtedly received her fair share of negative press and had her name circulate in rumors for a variety of reasons.
Ini Edo answered when Taymesan asked her about how people think that Nollywood actresses have to party a lot to be able to live the lifestyle they do during a recent interview for his Tea With Tay podcast. Ini Edo discussed the topic, offered her opinions, and related a story from her own life that sheds some light on the issue as a whole.
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During the interview, Ini Edo was asked “These days everybody just wants to scrutinize the Nollywood actresses, their successes, how they got there, are they working as hard as the boys, and whatever. You probably have faced such scrutiny as well. What do you think about this?” She said:
INI EDO: You see, this is such a sad conversation. A very sad conversation considering that I hear these narratives coming from people in the same industry. And I’m like these are the issues, this is why people don’t grow, this is why as a community we’re struggling, because we are our own problems. We are the ones tearing each other down, we are the ones clamoring for change but we are the ones rejecting it. It’s just like you’re eating yourself. I’ve lived this story all my life.
Between 2005 and 2007, I bought my second car. My first car was a droptop convertible, about 2006 or thereabout, I’m not good with dates, but earlier before I even moved to Lekki. And then I bought this truck, Murano, it just came out at the time and it was like I was the only one in the industry who had it. And I remember everybody going crazy. Like, how did she afford to buy this? And they made so much fuss about it. And I checked my account, it was my elder sister and I that went to buy the car somewhere in Ikeja, we just did the transfers. And I remember that before this time, I had worked consistently for about six years from when I started. When I talk about consistent, I’m talking about we used to do like three jobs in one week, me and one other girl, I don’t want to mention names. I would have two PAs, when I’m sleeping one would be awake. When that one is sleeping, the other one would follow me to work. We did this consistently, and if you look at how much we were being paid at that time, and don’t forget that these fees kept on increasing because a producer is going to come and say “How much is that person paying, let me add money for you”. This was happening consistently, and even when I bought that truck, I still had quite enough. And perhaps my male counterpart would look at that and be like “okay, how is that possible?” I don’t know how you manage your own funds. I don’t know how you work, if you work as hard. And I also realized that a lot of the young girls today are into so many other things minus even things on the internet. Some of them are doing things really off the internet, perhaps just their personal hustles here and there.
What do you think about what Ini Edo said, and about all this backlash actresses especially have been getting in recent times?