The unwholesome tales of celebrities caught up in sex-tape scandals may appear to have simmered but certainly haven’t deterred blackmailers from trying to take advantage of the slips to cash in on the opportunity whenever it arises, usually out of their victim’s negligence.
This is the hurtful story of Nigerian songstress, Tiwa Savage, who last week revealed that she is currently being blackmailed over a sex tape that was posted in error on Snapchat by her lover but had already been downloaded by a stalker before the error was realised and the raunchy private video deleted.
Savage said she she’d tears when she first saw the clip and was afraid of the reaction it would generate if it eventual comes out.
“I am not going to call it a sex tape but it’s a tape between me and the person I am dating right now,” she told Power 105.1 radio station in New York, USA.
Worried about the impact the video could have on her 6-year-old son and her relations, especially her mother, she said: “I am going to talk to him and for me it is even later on when he’s about 15 and someone is trying to be rude to him… I just have to brace him up.”
While some say there may not be any sex tape at all, just a mere PR stunt by the singer others say the 40-year-old lady will ultimately need counsel and emotional support to avoid a breakdown if the video if eventual leaked. However, Savage is not the only celebrity who has suffered this fate within the Nigerian entertainment industry.
A recent and similar case is that of 60-year-old veteran singer, Alhaja Salawa Abeni, who was also a victim of blackmail in April 2020.
In her own case, she was being blackmailed by a 19-year-old undergraduate with nude photos from her past. He had found the photos on a memory card he picked up on the floor in Yabatech back in 2019. Like Savage, Abeni called the blackmailer bluff and insisted she would not negotiate.
Also, sensational singer, 9ice, also made headlines recently when he was caught up in a nasty scandal after a video of him fondling the breasts of an unknown woman surfaced online. 9ice, however, implored his fans to help him plead with his wife, describing his actions as “shameful”. Like Savage’s, the said video too was posted on social media in error.
There was also the case of versatile songwriter and member of the defunct Mo’Hits Music Group, Wande Coal, some years ago, who was embroiled in a scandal when photos of him lying naked in bed circulated on the internet. Though the singer and his fellow Mo’Hits cohorts were quick to dismiss the photos, saying it was doctored, many think Coal’s image and career were badly affected by those leaked photos.
There was also the case of musician-cum-political aspirant, Banky W, whose error sparked social media outrage in 2017 after he erroneously uploaded a 10-second video of his Bikini-clad wife, Adesua, in their hotel room in a Snapchat video.
Arguably the most talked about couple of 2017, the video was apparently recorded during their honeymoon in South Africa.
Kannywood was also not spared of its share of the scandals. Last year, actress Mariam Booth was recorded while trying to dress up by an unknown individual. While the actress tried to stop the filming when she realised it, the deed had already been done. Lo and behold, the video was uploaded online by a Twitter user. This stirred controversy and eventually led the actress to sue her ex-lover for allegedly leaking the video.
There was also the case of a singer, Mo Cheddah, who had social media users wondering if she was engaged in an illicit affair with US-based singer, Eldee. She tweeted [her] nude picture which mistakenly went as a public message instead of a Direct Message. She was quick to delete the picture and immediately denied being the one in it. Eldee, who was allegedly the intended recipient, also tweeted in solidarity with the singer.
