Serial Entrepreneur, Chioma Ikokwu, widely known as Chioma Good Hair sits with Chude Jideonwo, host of #WithChude to discuss being on the reality TV show – The Real Housewives of Lagos, her expectations before she joined the show, and her experiences.
“I enjoyed some parts of RHOL, like the fun activities. But in most parts, I didn’t. If you are having fun, you are having fun, and anyone who knows me knows that I like to have a good time. For a lot of the activities we had, I actually genuinely enjoyed it. I felt like I met one or two amazing people and that was interesting. Also, It challenged me, physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.
“But, it was a very toxic environment and my real life is not toxic at all. I don’t have anybody around me that is negative or jealous or has an unsolicited opinion. I don’t have people like that around me. To be subjected to that kind of thing day in and day out, where I can’t avoid you is very toxic, it is unnecessary.
“I went there quite naively, thinking, ‘be yourself, have fun with it’. I didn’t even realize that reality TV dramas sell, that when you have issues people gravitate towards you, whether they hate you or love you and you become popular. So, some people have that strategy and that is why they were probably acting crazy from the start. With other people, I feel like you can’t really hide your persona, like they say, a character is like pregnancy, you can’t hide it for long”.
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Reacting to the meanness on the show and the drama that follows, she shared, “for me, it was just embarrassing. Looking at the person that I am, and the family that I came from, this is not something that I have ever even engaged in. I was never even on Twitter. The last time I was on Twitter was when I was in Lebanon because I had a desktop but after that time I never really went back. I just felt like it was such a violent space to be in, seeing all that was so new to me “.
“All the back and forth could have been avoided. What did we teach young girls? People come to me, and say things like, “Oh my, you are so inspiring”, but I know how much more I would have offered to the situation to actually genuinely inspire people, to want to be better and do better but I don’t want to be seen on TV as someone who is fighting or arguing. That is not the legacy that I want to leave. I don’t want the tagline to be insults, I want it to be something you can use to empower yourself and I never really liked the fact that they pushed more negativity. At the end of the day, of course, drama sells on TV, but it could have been mixed a little bit more”, she added.
When asked if she regretted being part of the show, she mentioned that she has mixed feelings about it, “some days I will just wake up and wonder what possessed me to be in the show, where even when there is the violence they don’t mind. Other times, I see that it also gave people an opportunity to see different sides of me, before that it was just pictures on Instagram, and people kind of thought that I was so stuck up.”
