BEVERLY HILLS, April 02, (THEWILL) – Veteran Nigerian actress, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, says she could not mourn her father when he died because his death left her “numbed and emotionless.”
The movie star disclosed this in the new episode of #WithChude wherein she talked about how the loss of her father at age 12 left her shattered.
According to the actress, she had a very strong relationship with her father.
She said: “When I was about nine-years old, I was shipped off to Command Secondary School in Kaduna. By that time, they had just given birth to my younger brother. I was a child and I did not take it well at all.
“I even remember when he was leaving, we both were crying. It really affected me –I thought the reason was because he now had other kids, and I was no longer important to him.
“I think everything I have been, positively or negatively, was solely because of my father’s death. It affected me so much; I didn’t even know how much at the time. I did not even mourn my dad.”
According to the movie star, her father died when she was happy about returning home from school to spend some time with him.
Omotola narrated: “At the age of 12, I was becoming a little lady, and I was excited to spend time with my father. That was when I got called out of school because I needed to be home. I knew someone had died because of how everyone in school was tiptoeing around me. The only thing I kept saying at the airport was, ‘I just hope it is not my Dad.’
“For some callous reason, I was okay with it being anyone but him. When I got home, I was greeted by a crowd. As I walked into the house, I was thinking about which of my family members had died. I saw my brothers, then I saw my mum, and, at that moment, I froze because I knew it was my dad that had died.
“I’m not sure if it was the guilt of wishing death on someone else, and not him, or because I was too young to process it or because I was still angry with him for shipping me off, but I was numb and emotionless, and it has affected me to this day. It was like something died in me.”
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