Weird entertainer, Denrele Edun, speaks with WOLE ADEPOJU on his peculiar way of life, the challenges he encounters with his lifestyle and the qualities he expects to see in a lady that will attract him for marriage. Excerpts:
What was it like when you decided to settle for weird things, because it was not a very common thing, aside from Charly Boy, who was popular with it, when you brought it to the fore?
Well, that’s a million dollar question rolled into one. As you were asking, I was just wondering where do I start from or what should I say. Truth be told, it’s a two-way thing to know your personality. One, the way you behave when you have everything and the way you manage when you have nothing. I have lived a life where I had nothing. I don’t have everything yet, but I am still looking towards getting to that level. But at that point in time, the reception was negative. I don’t know how Charly Boy did it in his time, but for me, it was hell. At a point, I would just go home and sit down and begin to think, Tani mo se? (Who did I offend?), because I did not step on toes or get on anybody’s way. I would just be like, why can’t they let me be? Why can’t they allow me to express my individuality? I think the only industry that kind of appreciated what I was doing, and it was for a limited period of time, was the fashion industry, which I got into when I was young. But when I got out of the casting and I faced the real world in its raw form, it was all kinds of criticisms. On the street, people would stop me and abuse me; conductors would not let me enter their buses. I remember one day, when I boarded a bus from Yaba to Obalende, the moment I got in, everyone ran out of the bus shouting, ‘Mad man! Mad man!!’ So, the outside world was crazy. And again, the church as well. I was in the choir; so many times I got stopped from wearing the choir robes, probably because of the way I looked or my hair was, in a certain way, and the church now said they had to ex-communicate me. They would call my father and complain. My grandma, too, would wake up in the morning, call members of the family. She would call my father, ‘Alaba,’ that’s my father’s name, ‘Se o ki nba omo yi soro ni?’ Don’t you talk to this child? My cousins, too, would like, what is wrong with you? Are you waiting for them to discover you? You never get discovered this way and so on. It was totally negative. And again, it was a tip of the iceberg. I was also in UNILAG at that point and that was one of the hardest places to survive in because, when I got to school, my lecturers would walk me out of class, students would pelt me with pure water, all the magazines would take on me, and I would like, what is this? Why are they doing this to me? I think someone now told me not to be bothered; that what they were doing to me only showed they acknowledged my presence and actions.
You use your weird costume both on and off duty. How easy is it to make them part and parcel of you?
If this was like pretence, then that makes me a complete hypocrite or it makes my life look like I have been living an act and I have been living a lie all these years. I am not living a lie; I am not living an act. This is me. I don’t drink or smoke, I get my energy amazingly. I do what I want to do, I wear what I want to wear, I don’t care a hoot. If you don’t like it, na your wahala and you fit enter Third Mainland Bridge and jump. I really can’t be bothered about people’s opinion, I am way passed it. But again, it’s a thing of the mind. It started with a thought, I now built it into an act; then from sowing an act, I started to reap the talent and from sowing in talent, it started building into character; from sowing a character, we started reaping an identity and from identity, we are building a brand. Inasmuch as I don’t see myself in that light, but again, when I go to some places and I see some people screaming, I wonder what they are screaming at? Are they not tired of seeing me? I don’t see things that people see which also has helped me stay grounded over time. Above all, it’s not about wearing the cloth, going out there; trying to say I don’t read the news, I make the news. I am not publicity hungry. What will be, will be. And another thing is this, when we go home and we are left alone on our bed – in my case, I don’t have to say what do I do next? I don’t even plot my next move; I take each day as it comes.
How do you feel being labeled a gay?
Well, I have been labeled everything that is sexual in this country, from heterosexual to metrosexual to bisexual to homosexual to solo sexual, even sexual sexual. So, what can I do? I go with the flow, I don’t complain. The thing is it has always followed me right from UNILAG, may be because I would say I am a bit feminine in nature or because I am different from the regular guy or I dress in a certain way. Sexual orientation is very different from gender identity, but in Nigeria, they put it together. So, right from school, all those beef magazines would go like, Denrele is too gay to function and all that and because I was very young at the time I got to UNILAG, I would go home and cry. But, of course, I could not tell anyone at home. That is why I can relate well with celebrities when certain stories are fabricated against them or they are being harassed over a particular thing, because I have been through it. But now, I have developed a thick skin that I just laugh them off.
The picture in which you kissed Charly Boy generated a lot of controversy. What was the experience like?
I was in Malaysia when the story came out. I went for a show with 9ce and Niga Raw, when I started getting in on BBM. It was not funny o. when I landed in Nigeria, all the Customs official had copies of the paper. Before they signed my passport and get my luggage, it was not easy. My driver came to pick me and he was looking at me through the mirror like, ‘dis brother no know wetin dey happen.’ In traffic jams, vendors would run after me, shouting, ‘shame, shame….see wetin you do?’ Some people would alight from their cars and knock on my window and say all sorts of things. It was a terrible period but my close knit family handled it well. I guess people expected it would make me mellow, but for where? I would get to party and they would ask if I was looking for Charly Boy and I would say no, that I was looking for who to kiss, again. But seriously, it was hectic; it was a very traumatic period for me.
I think your wife will enjoy you, since you don’t seem to be a womaniser?
Yes. And the funny thing is that I can count how many relationships I have had. The last one was a huge disaster and we have gone our separate ways, but we are now friends, which is funny. The people who knew me back then, all the super models, even Linda Ikeji, they all knew who I was dating then. I used to date someone, who is married now with twins. I was her first boyfriend, then.
What kind of woman would you want to marry?
What endears me to a woman is, I love women, who make very good conversation; not women who will just sit down and be looking at me like hmmmm…..jump into water, hmmm… kill yourself, hmmm, no, I used to have those kind of people in my life before. I like somebody who would not want to change me. I love someone with who I can go to the salon together to do our hair and we laugh about it. I also don’t like ladies that are too big physically because I will only handle what I can.
Are you going to continue with the way you dress, when you eventually get married?
This is the way I am and I am going to continue to be like this, and even more. This is my life, this is my choice and this is what I have fashioned my life to be and I don’t think I want to change that anytime soon.
Would you allow your children to dress weird?
It depends on what you consider as weird. But if my kids wake me one morning that they want to do this. Who am I to tell them not to when my own father gave me the chance to and it’s been reaping for me bountifully right now and he’s also benefitting from it.
Are you fulfilled with where you have got to in your career?
I don’t think I have done anything yet and I am not trying to sound immodest, being hardworking or too ambitious as a person. I don’t even think I have met one quarter of the guiding philosophies I set for myself, my target and deadline. I don’t think I have met half. Thank God, again, for one to be busy; work keeps coming and I am ever grateful to God
for that.
