She had avoided being the subject of Instagram live sessions of famous people hurling insults at other famous people that had become the hallmark of a new kind of celebrity culture; Influencer-meet-socialite-meet-rising-actress-meet-content-creator with fans in the millions stan-ing round the clock.
The Real Housewives of Lagos, with the second strongest stan culture in the country, the first being Big Brother Naija, will invade her relative peace. After over seven months of shooting the season and two months of streaming on Showmax, she will become a new kind of celebrity. The type who makes a comment and provokes countless analyses, and think pieces, with pop culture experts giving takes on what it might mean.
But since she left the show, she had not spoken at length about what her experience was. When asked what happened on the Reunion billed to drop on Friday, January 19, 2024, according to the Showmax app, she said the team hasn’t shot it yet.
“It can’t be coming out because we haven’t filmed it,” she told Pulse exclusively. But she adds that she is “looking forward to clearing the air.”
Fans of the show had criticised her for being disingenuous and unfair in her criticism of Faith Morey, the other new housewife who joined last season. Morey had accused Iyabo Ojo, the actress and a housewife from the first season of being “a bully” on set, allegations Ojo has publicly apologised for. Omotayo, who said she knew Ojo personally before the show, was accused of taking Ojo’s side.
When Morey called her “a puppet,” fans seized on it as evidence that their criticism of her had been right all along.
“I feel like a lot of things were taken out of context. A lot of things were cut. Sentences were cut abruptly to create a narrative,” she said.
When Rommel Asagwara, known as just Dr Rommel came on the show as a friend of Morey’s, whom he eventually fought with, Omotayo was one of the housewives who did not believe the comments Dr Rommel made about Morey.
On the show, when the housewives confronted Dr Rommel, Omotayo half-jokingly said, “I dressed well just in case I’m in the presence of my enemy.”
Now that the show is over, does she still feel like she’s in the presence of her enemy? “I still do feel like I’m in the presence of my enemy,” she said half-jokingly.
“I was right. He was lying,” she added of Dr Rommel. “I was right from the beginning.”
But she had blamed the production of the show largely for editing and cutting scenes without the needed nuance to give a more robust perspective.
“So if I say to you, ‘I hate you so much. You look so hot today.’ And you cut it to ‘I hate you so much,’ and you leave the compliment, what does that make me look like? That is what editing does,” she said.
Does she feel like she was done dirty? “Yes,” she said.
She had known Chioma “Goodhair” Ikowku and Iyabo Ojo personally before she went on the show. So aside from them, does she think she made genuine friendships with the other housewives that she met on the show? “No,” she said.
But that is also not what she bothers about these days. Her focus is on her business.
“I’m happy to have my life back. And, you know, just having time to do other things. I’m happy to be able to focus on my business. I just opened a new store. I’m opening another store this year. I ventured into acting. That’s coming out this year,” she said.
