Omotola Jalade Ekeinde and husband, Matthew

By Nehru Odeh

Popular Nollywood actress Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde is over the moon. And she has set the internet on fire, tongues wagging and fans gushing as she celebrates not just her 27th wedding anniversary but also her husband Matthew Ekeinde’s birthday.

It is indeed a double celebration for the curvaceous actress popularly known as Omosexy and she has every reason to celebrate it in her way.

Omotola took to her Instagram account on Thursday 23 March to mark her wedding anniversary as she celebrates her husband, expressing her love for him and her commitment to the union in a very unique way.

She shared a photo that elicits emotions she had taken with her husband whom she referred to as My forever Honeyboy, as she wished him a happy birthday.

In the message that she penned alongside the photo, Omotola who is one of the most popular actresses on the African continent stated why she has every reason to celebrate her wedding anniversary and her husband.

She captioned it: Happy Birthday my Forever HoneyBoy

And…

Happy Anniversary to us,

27 years and we are only just about to get into phase 2!

Last kiddo is now 21….no more PG

Ready Love? Love you endlessly.

Indeed, Omotola has every reason to celebrate her wedding anniversary. As she stated in that Instagram post, she is about to enter the second phase of her life, having been married for 27 years and her last child is 21. According to her, her children are so mature there is no more Parental Guidance, PG, to take note of.

In an exclusive interview with TheNEWS in May 2020 to mark her 25th anniversary in the entertainment industry, Omotola had earlier hinted that she was about to enter the second phase of her life, having started acting at 15 and gotten married at 18.

Started acting at 15 and got married at 18? Stunning, right? According to Omotola, having put so much into her marital life and the entertainment industry and celebrating her 25th year in the entertainment industry at the time, she was set to enter the second phase of her life.

What would the second phase of her life be like? Wait for this. The popular actress and sex symbol said it was time for her to start living her own life, to take care of herself and to start doing the things she had always wanted to do.

“By God’s grace, I feel that I’m in a good place now, where I have finished training my kids, by God’s grace because I started giving birth very early as well. I gave birth to my last child in 2002 at 22. So at 22, I had finished having all my kids. My son just turned 18 this year. So I have had to go through different stages in life. Everything is just happening at the right time for me.

“And this is my 25th  anniversary in the entertainment industry. I think it is a switch in my brain that is just telling me it’s time to also take care of myself.  I have taken care of my kids. They are all men and women now on their own. I have sent them forth to go and live their lives.

“I want to now live my life. Unlike so many people, I did my own the other way around. Some people first live their life, party, and do everything. Then in their 30s or whatever, they get married and started having children. I did mine the other way around. I got married early, had children early, do all of that. Now I have seen all of them off to their lives, now I want to start living my own life. I want to do everything that I wanted to do. I want to do it now,” Omotola maintained.

Indeed, it had been 25 years of being on set and on stage as a musician at the time the interview was conducted. It had been 25 years of not just entertaining Nigerians and being in their consciousness and purview but also wowing them with her delectable beauty, sensuality and sexiness. It had been 25 years of fighting to make sure that the actor as a married woman is not scorned or disapproved of by the public.

It hasn’t been a ride in the park for the Nigerian-born internationally renowned curvy actress. Omotola revealed that all through her career as an entertainer, the 25th anniversary of which she celebrated in 2020, she spent it trying to maintain her brand, to keep it desirable.

According to her, she was the only actor at the time who was married and struggling to use being a married woman as a sex symbol, to make being married as an actor acceptable in society.

“I mean I am more of an entrepreneur now. I’m 42 now. I’m still young, you know (laughs). But don’t forget that I started very early as well. I started at 15. And so starting, there are so many things you keep trying to do. I started at 15 and got married at 18. I had to sustain my brand.

“In Nigeria, in those days, they would tell you that once you got married then that is the end of your career. People don’t know how much I have had to struggle to keep my brand still desirable.  In those days once you get married your career is over. ‘Ah, you don become a mama. Na person wife. Leave am, leave am. Na person wife,’ You understand.

“It took a lot of work for me to sustain my brand. I’m tactically the only actor who was married, who was struggling to keep using a married woman still as a sex symbol. If not for all that fight that I did, every other actress that came after me who got married would probably have had issues. Because they would just look at you and say, ‘ah you don marry. Bye Bye.” But marriage should not be the end of your career.

“It shouldn’t be that because you are married now, okay you are not desirable. And even if I am married, it is not as if you will still befriend me, anyway.  Why is it that I could have 10 boyfriends, but when I commit myself to one person it becomes a problem? Why? It doesn’t make sense to me.

“So I had to fight that. That was what I was doing throughout my younger years. And so stabilizing that Omosexy brand and all of that stuff, and making sure that I have stamped that brand, which I fought a lot to do, by God’s grace, I‘m building on that. It’s taking years.

Asked how she has been able to achieve a lot as an entertainer and maintain her status as a role model to many, especially the youths because she got married so early and is a mother of four successful children, Omotola hinged it on God’s grace, her determination and her husband Matthew with whom she has been married to for 27 years.

“The truth is, it’s being God’s grace. That’s the truth. It’s being God’s grace because I believe that if you truly, genuinely, hand your life over to God and you are lucky enough to have people around you who believe in the same values, you know, there would always be tough times. As long as we are on this earth, and we are humans, there would be turbulence, and there would be tough times.  But as long as those who are close to you and around you have the same values and you have all handed your matter over to God as your source of deliverance and to steer your life, I think one way or the other you will always find your bearing.

“And so our credit for our life is first and foremost to God because if it was just left to me, there are so many, even me too, would have vanished. As a human being there are times when you just feel like, ‘Abeg make we just scatter everything. What?’  But because you fear God you give it time and of course, God naturally heals and takes care of things.

“So I would say the God factor, me giving my life early on to Christ at the age of 15, 16 has helped me tremendously because it has helped me to grow in Him and trust Him more.

“Secondly I would say the will. It was one thing for God to help and it is another thing for you to be willing to trust him. So I would say another thing is the will that I have, the strong will. I am a very strong-willed person and I understand exactly what needs to be done and how by God’s grace how it needs to be done.  And I do all that needs to be done by God’s grace.

“By God’s grace, I have been gifted with a very, very wonderful partner.  I can credit him more than I can credit myself, to be honest. Because I won’t lie I am not the easiest person to deal with. But he is a very, very strong and disciplined person. Sometimes I wonder if he is human. It’s unreal.  And he is very humble, more humble than I can ever be.  He is very understanding and very mature.

“So I am just grateful for the partner that God has gifted me. Yeah, those are the things that I can say. And so for that reason and because of our values and everything by God’s grace, we’ve been able to bring up children who also believe in the same values,” Omotola averred.

Asked again in another exclusive interview with TheNEWS in 2011 what the secret to her stable marriage was, Omotola succinctly said: “I think the secret is that you have to act like you are still dating.”

And indeed, if her expression of love for her husband is anything to go by –  having just celebrated her 27th wedding anniversary – Omotola, who has just entered the second phase of her life, is sure acting like she is still dating.