Actress and producer, Blessing Effiom Egbe, said what many in the Nigerian movie industry already knew when she declared publicly last year that married and single actresses sleep around to get to the top of their game.
In the words of the model who later found a home in Nollywood “People now put all artistes under same umbrella. We are not respected because of some greedy, talent-less lot who flood the industry. Husbands skip a heartbeat whenever their wives are on location because of the dirt that goes on. Orgies in hotel rooms involving married couple. Acting is now the gateway to prostitution. People will do anything to have their faces on the screen because market go come and true true market plenty.”
In telling the story of their rise to the top, even actresses with a notorious reputation for warming the bed of everybody from marketers to production assistants skip the part about what happened between the sheets. Fans look at the actresses and think they became famous on the strength of their talent. While that is true for some, many have had to go through what is known in Nollywood as a “rite of passage”.
An actress renowned for her iconic comedy character will tell you she went to several auditions and saved up for her first movie production before she became famous. But her colleagues know that she slept with various people including actors, producers, production managers and a very big marketer who bankrolls her films.
Male veterans are known to put young women through an initiation process which does not always take place in front of the camera. “It’s unbelievable, how the aged ones in the industry request to sleep with the young ladies with the promise of stardom. However, not all of them make good on their promise. For some, they make you a celebrity as they have promised by insisting that you feature in every movie that they feature in. The actresses then become sex slaves and objects of ridicule among these actors,” someone familiar with the trend told Qed.ng.
A late Yoruba actress was known to have dated a famous veteran actor through whom she became a household name in the industry. After she got tired of the relationship and decided to call it off in order to start a relationship with someone she saw a future with, her male benefactor would not have it and did all he could to destroy her career. He would insist that marketers do not cast them in the same movie. When that became inevitable because of the actress’ acquired popularity with fans, producers did everything to avoid the two meeting on set.
Such relationships with marketers and others do not always end even after the actresses get married.
“It’s shocking how this deal goes on even after marriage,” Qed.ng was told.
A now divorced actress was linked to a famous marketer and other wealthy men while she was still yoked to her husband. It is believed that her undisguised promiscuity ended her marriage which produced some children. Matters were not helped by the fact that her former husband is also an actor and tales about his ex-wife’s adventures got to him.
Some marketers claim to really like particular actresses that the idea of the women starting a relationship with men they hope to get married to becomes a taboo. A popular actress was in a very intimate relationship with one of her marketers who had a hard time letting her go. She eventually managed to get married to another actor but the marriage is currently going through a storm.
The perks that come when an actress dates a marketer include getting a poster face, a role in every movie from the marketer and production money for her own movies. Ask any of the actresses who travelled that road to fame and they will tell you none of that happened.
Some actresses are also pimped to famous rich touts. Many of these men are the ones who provide the money producers and marketers spend on their movie projects. For some reason yet to be scientifically proven, many of these men prefer women with light skin. That is why some of the actresses bleach or tone their skin in order to increase their odds of finding favour from the men.
“When you see an actress whose skin is suddenly getting lighter, do not just imagine what kind of cream she is using but also the kind of man she is sleeping with,” an actor told our correspondent. “Why else do you think many of our female colleagues can afford to live in Lekki while we men are often on the Mainland?” he continued. “These men provide them with the expensive cars they drive and big houses they live in.”
While the big time marketers and other financiers have a lasting hold on the actresses, some men way down the chain become history soon after body fluids are exchanged. Such men include production managers and their assistants. How do they come into the scene? These people give starlets the opportunity to get on movie sets so that they can be known through constant appearances. In the case where an actress manages to hit the limelight, all that such men who may now be unable to get close to the star she has become have left is the bragging right that some women who are now popular on the red carpet and magazine covers are on their “conquest list”.
