As proverbially mused, ‘many waters have passed under the bridge’ since that call came through to Tunde Moshood’s phone sometime at dusk in December, 2004 when Jaiyejeje Aboderin breathed his last. “Hello”, Tunde Obe had made that august call to TM, the Editor of defunct Fame Weekly magazine and because he seldom called, the receiver hurried with huge enthusiasm to answer; “Uncle Tunde, good evening sir…” The rest as they say is history. TM had just been hinted of how Jaiye slumped on the basketball court when he was exercising in preparation for a big gig he was to perform at. “Stop press!” TM screamed. The paper had almost gone to bed but this exigency forced the team on duty to discard the old and plan a fresh cover. In fact, that week, Fame Magazine almost had two covers after a heated argument by the editors comprising TM, Mr. Starrys Obaze and Miss Josephyn Mba.
Widowed by such a tragic happenstance when Stella Damasus was just in her 20s, many of us empathized with the starlet who had just begun to ride into fame and ‘perceived’ fortune. Her claim to fame was a movie titled ‘Real Love’ in which she played a lead role, a blind lover alongside TV darling, Ramsey Noah (Jnr.). That was when Genevieve Nnaji and Omotola Jolade-Ekeinde were the producers and fans’ super delight. She brought a breath of fresh air with a mesmeric plunge into a character that was miles apart from her person in real life and everyone almost jettisoned the old ‘chic(s)’ for this new kid on the bloc. Pardon my necessary digression.
Before her husband’s untimely death, Stella had stellar musical outings with Jaiye as a partner on the Synergy Band. They sang together at gigs and stole the show wherever fate took them. That was when men were boys and ladies cradled in age of near-innocence. Stella was the vice president of the band which she reportedly joined when she was an undergraduate of Theatre Arts at the University of Lagos. At the said time, Jaiye wasn’t big yet and understandably so, would drive his rickety car to spend time with drop dead gorgeous girlfriend on campus. The fact that Jaiye was the son of late Olu Aboderin, founder of Punch Newspapers did open the doors, but his mastery of smooth blend of juju and highlife music kept those doors opened. Though a sunset at dawn, Jaiye’s life and times were full goals, sadly there was no time to see most of them to fruition. Stella carried on with the band for some time but couldn’t sustain it.
One of the hangers-on and earliest callers at Stella’s home the morning after was Kate Henshaw. She played the comforter’s role for as long as she could and at some point moved Stella and the two beautiful girls, Isabel and Angelica, to her house.
Expectedly, it was about the most trying times of the Nollywood heartthrob as there were attendant in-laws’ palavers to also deal with. It was believed and reported that while still legally married, Stella was lecherous. And similar reports had fallen on Jaiye’s deaf ears; he would even avoid his family members anytime such matter reared its head. So, he was left to stirring his ship.
Some of her in-laws had also felt she had begun to waste the resources meant for the upkeeps of the kids on frivolities- what was due to Jaiye from his father’s vast business interests which include Punch Newspapers add up to tens of millions of naira every passing year. And the annual benefits are much more than that now according to an insider. So she blatantly fell out with the Aboderins and whatever is left now are the claims she picks up yearly.
Then in about the five years she stayed unmarried, she often allegedly fell in and out of love. Her alleged romance with Sammie Okposo who reportedly also shared some romantic tie with Kate Henshaw was a matter the press feasted on for months. And we learnt it was the affair that put a strain in her friendship with Kate. And at other times, she was alleged to have dated Nollywood superstar, Richard Mofe Damijo, Tim Godfrey, the famous singer and Mofe Duncan, a budding actor and on-air-personality.
Five years after her last marriage, Stella took another shot at marriage albeit secretly. She got married to Emeka Nzeribe and the marriage lasted barely a year. It packed up on allegations of infidelity in 2010. The last straw that broke the camel’s back was a ‘quickie’ Stella was alleged to have had with mogul, Taiwo Afolabi. Afolabi, the chairman of Sifax Group was said to have put the lady on an all-expense paid trip overseas when the hubby was made to believe she was traveling to pick an award. When the cookie crumbled, Nzeribe vacated her home located on Kingsley Emu street, Lekki, Lagos to his apartment.
Shortly after the crash of her second marriage, Wunmi Obe, Jaiye’s sister tweeted; “Vindicated at last. Jaiye, it’s over! Sleep on brother.” And that was inadvertently connected to what had just befallen Stella.
She moved on with her life and career, but the emergence of Mercy Johnson, Tonto Dike and a few other actresses who could act well for lesser fees changed the game. Producers would rather work with the Ini Edos, Uche Jombos, Queen Nwokoyes and other emerging girls of the screen. So she was adversely affected. But as a lone parent with her beautiful daughters, Stella had a task to muster the courage to survive with her girls, teach them to be better women, put them through school and consequently prepare them not to fail because there might just be some people waiting to mock her.
As she continued to ignore negativities, as though her life depends on it, another phase of her life will open fresh controversies.
Three years ago, another romance scandal was stirred by her sudden dalliance with Daniel Ademinokan, a movie director and husband to another actress, Doris Simeon. Daniel had fallen on bad times and couldn’t live up to the standard he’d set for his family. And in no time, he began to spend more time with Stella than he’d spend with his family. Sooner than expected, the veiled affair unsettled his home and the man who could no longer pay his rent in their Magodo home absconded with the only fruit of their liaison, a boy. But in an interview with the man in his late 30s, he said; “I`ve moved ahead, I don`t want to talk about my past, I now live happily with my boy, David in Abuja.”
The two ostensibly agreed to tell a common lie; “we’re partners in business”. Following a twitter rant by Stella last year, some men of the Department of State Security were on the trail of the actress which led them to Daniel’s mother’s abode but she was lucky to be absent when the gun –trotting arrived. In self-defense; she claimed Daniel’s mom was her spiritual mother. And shortly after, the love-struck duo started posting photographs from the chill of US. By this time, there was nothing more Doris could do other than to let go. The romance is now nothing to hide as they attend shows together with no worries about people’s judgment of their choice.
On August 22, 2013, Stella in a series posted online had said this; “This is for the married women o please this is not targeted at single girls. Now we know that the one thing men cannot live without apart from money is SEX. In this forum I really don’t care where anyone is from or what religion you belong to, I will be as raw and honest as possible. I do not understand why women especially Africans do not talk about sex when we know that it is the one thing we do regularly with so much pleasure.
Anyway our men love sex to the max and we know that for a fact. So how come when we are dating them we are so willing to give them what they want even though we know it is wrong. The first few years of marriage is filled with sex almost five times a day in different parts of the house and at odd hours, but after the few years we start to back down, we start to make excuses, we start to see it as a chore and then we let them know that we are really not interested in them physically. Wow, what happened to the lady fox, the hot chic, the sexy cat that he got married to? What happened to the babe that would understand the signal he would give and immediately comply?
What happened those times when he would race home to his sexy energetic ever ready wife who would make him feel wanted?
I know that most of you will say “I have kids who wear me out, I have work that drains me, I got older, my sex drive has gone under, I have a headache” to the point that the man will need to get a visa at your “embassy” to visit his favorite place in the World. When you do this to him, how do you expect him to come home every day to look at your tired, grumpy and unfriendly face?
How would you expect him to come home to you complaining about the plumber, your child that was being rude, and your boss that gave you a hard time?”
All these even if they were innocent counsels were believed to a string of words to taunt ‘Doris’ who couldn’t keep her man.
This incident was the same that propelled the twitter jibe which would later pitch Toyin Aimakhu against Stella. Toyin had posted something on twitter eight months earlier but the owner of the jab got to respond after such an incredibly long time. In the tweet, Toyin had accused Stella of a number of things which she thus responded to; “First of all, sister girl. I love you too. I love you like crazy. Let’s just look at your hashtags again. Okay? We need to sort this out. You said hashtag visa don expire. I’ve been here for about two years and nobody has asked me to leave. And apart from that I am doing a lot of work with the United Nations. So if I had a problem with my visa, I don’t think they will be working with right now. I’m doing radio, I’m doing TV. Doing a lot of things and nobody has come to knock on my door to say your visa has expired, leave. Honey, when it comes to the visa let’s be sure what we’re saying. And you said hashtag bring our son back. Is your son missing? (looks around and asks ‘does she have a son?’) If your son is missing, let’s look for him. You know me, I can do plenty videos. Tell me and I will scream till my lungs burst or something and make sure they return your son. Then you said attention seeker. My dear, this issue of attention beats me because I have been told that I have been trending. People talk about me every day. I don’t know who’s writing, what they are saying, please educate me. Even people that pay for PR they don’t have as much publicity as I do so hey…Love you still!”
That was the last social media face-off she got before hitting the studio for some serious musical work.
In recent times, the actress cum singer has been busy working in different projects, some of which she shared; “I am so excited to present to you the second single from my forth coming album. This song is title “Jaa Gi Mma”, which simply means “Giving God Praise” and that is in Igbo language which is spoken in the eastern part of Nigeria.
I had the great pleasure of working with my amazing partner and producer Daniel “DaBishop” Ademinokan, who also did my first single, “The Man”.
DaBishop also produced and directed the music video which was shot in Atlanta, Georgia.
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