Actresses’ earnings not commensurate to lifestyle on social media – Bimbo Akintola
Nollywood actress, Bimbo Akintola has argued that the lifestyles some actresses portray on social media is not at par with their earnings.
The movie star, in a recent interview, stressed that the reality of being a Nollywood actress is not what is displayed online by some actresses.
She questioned how they make such a huge amount of money they flaunt online saying, “For a lot of actresses, people can’t understand where the money is coming from. Cuz we all know what the industry is about. We all know what people earn. We all know what you can earn. Except you have money from home, maybe you’re from a rich family, then some of the lifestyles we see especially on social media can be real. And if it’s real, where is it from?” (sic)
Furthermore, Akintola relayed the worries of some people who have spoken to her concerning the topic.
She said, “Being truthful, people come up to me and they say ‘Look at actresses, they’re very rich’ and I say I don’t know about that because me, I’m not rich. I say ‘When you see them, ask them what they do.’ I say it all the time. I say ‘Ask them what they do.’ Because we all know how much them dey sell film na. Iroko, has Iroko passed 4 million? Is it not 4 million naira, or 5 max? That’s how much a whole film is na. No be so? We all know how much e dey sell for Africa Magic, Africa Magic just went back to N4 million. They went down to 1.2, a whole film! All of us inside plus crew plus everybody, we know how much it is. And then yes, there is also Netflix and Netflix is international so obviously, the money is also bigger. But we also know what people earn for cinema films. We started with cinema before Netflix and that boosted people, but we also know how much we make for those films.
“So, for a lot of actresses that I see, I don’t know if the money is from home, maybe they’re from very rich homes. Or there’s other businesses that they’re doing. Because there has to be with the amount of wealth that some of our colleagues show.
“And then of course we’ve also heard stories of actresses being wanted by politicians, actresses dating politicians, actresses doing stuff with politicians and getting paid for it. So we’ve all heard that, and we all know that things like that do happen. But it’s not just actresses that do that, women in Nigeria do that because the poverty level is pretty high, isn’t it? So a lot of women are on the level of whatever I can do to sustain myself and my family, I’m gonna do it.”
