How my popularity grew and sky rocketed - Chidinma

An except from a recent interview, 2011 Project Fame winner Chidinma did with The Punch.

You eventually came into the spotlight and it opened doors to controversies and scandal…..
I have been in the news lately. My manager told me that I am a balloon on top of a lot needles, People want me to drop on those needles and get deflated. He told me to be careful,The first time was when my nude picture went viral, I actually went for a photo shoot for my friend, I wore a tube dress. Some mischief makers actually cropped off the lower part of the picture and posted it on the internet. It was as if I was nude, I wasn’t happy at all, I had that picture, I had to post the real picture on the net and people now got convinced the nude picture wasn’t original, I thought that was the end I didn’t know that a bigger scandal was coming up……


You mean the s*x video?

Oh yes, I woke up one morning and I was greeting on the internet with “Chidinma and S*x tape”. I was worried primarily because of my mother, I didn’t let her see the video but I had to show her the photos. I didn’t want to go out that day. I couldn’t go out. But my mum felt otherwise. She told me to ignore the mischief makers. I almost took some actions but I thought against it. I met Sound Sultan on a set. He told me “Babe you are now a star,I welcome you officially into the industry”. I trended for three days. Even people who didn’t know me got to know me. My fan base grew and then. I was happy more than 90% of the public didn’t believe I was the one in that video. There were people who didn’t need to see the video to believe that I couldn’t have done such a thing. I was grateful to everyone who didn’t believe the story. My twitter account was hacked and the people created another account. They kept releasing nasty pictures and kept responding to tweets as if I was the one doing it. I was just watching and laughing. It put me in the spotlight. I used it for good……

But such scandal shouldn’t be good for your career

Ever since I started. I have been scared of scandals. I didn’t want to have any. But I realize I cannot run away from it. It is just normal. It is not everybody that is happy seeing me rise. Some people are trying to do something to stop me. But sex tape is not enough to stop me. They should bring up something else. The s*x tape just took me to another level in my career. it moved me up. This is no more little “Chidinma”
It didn’t bring me down in anyway. I am still doing a lot of things.

Culled: ThePunch(read full story here)