The other day, we brought you a quicker (HERE), now we bring you the full interview!
In this interview with Golden Icons, Stella opened up about a lot of things like never before. She talked about her late husband Jaiye Aboderin, her happy life with Daniel Ademinokan – yea she has confirmed they are together đ – and criticism about their relationship.
Stella also talked about her daughters and rumours of her dating Richard Mofe-Damijo (RMD).
See excerpts below:
On tying the knot with Jaiye Aboderin at the age of 21:
âI always wanted to start early. I always wanted to have children
early. I wanted to have a marriage early, I wanted to grow with a
family. I wanted to learn the inside of it, I didnât want to wait and
grow, and mature, and become big and famous then start to wonder âoh,
will anyone marry me nowâ.
I didnât want that to happen because at 16 I was already popular. I
was making money, I was travelling. So at that point looking at my life,
I said, if I do this for another five (5), six (6), seven (7) years,
and I donât start a family, it will become more difficult for me later
on. And so, I decided if I find somebody who I love, who will love me
back, we will go together. We will fight all the fight, make up, we will
do whatever, but we will grow old together. And thatâs what happened.
And I am happy I made that decision, because today I have a 15 year
old. I grew up with my children. When you see the three of us, and you
see my daughters, you will think we are sisters. And we talk as friends.
So it was an important thing for me. To have a family, and have thatâŠI
needed something to check me. We have a tendency to be crazy and do
whatever we like because we could get away with anything, we could
travel all over the world, we could get people to like us like this
(snaps finger), we had money to throw around. If I donât have that
family unit to check me, I donât know what I would have become and I
wonât lie about that.â
On recovering from losing him: Recover? Do you
really recover? They say time heals. I say, I have a different
definition, I say time numbs. It is not something that heals, and then
thatâs it, itâs gone, itâs gone, No. This is someone you planned to
spend the rest of your life with, and grow with.
We made plans, like every other couple. And when that happenedâŠhe
died when I was 26 with two children. I just felt that my life had
ended. So, but with time, this year, December 3rd will 10 years, one
full decade. So it is not healing, I wonât call it healing but I will
say it numbs it and once in a while, it comes up and the pain is as
fresh like yesterday but it is how you deal with it that matters.
And thatâs what I have had to do for the past 10 years but I am very
grateful for the family I have, for the people I have around me. For
that, you need a lot of strength. God helped me through it all.â
On Widow being her story: âWidow is a true life
story but not my story. The woman who I played lives with her children
in the UK. I did Widow, months before my husband passed away. So I saw
the lady that I played, so when the movie came out, the movie came out
after my husband had died.
It didnât come out before. So when it came out, everybody thought âoh
thatâs her story, she was telling her storyâ. It wasnât my story. I
wasnât upset, I was actually grateful that I did such a great job that
people believed that it was me. Because as at the time I was doing it,
my husband was, in fact he was the one dropping me off on location. So
it means I must have done a very good job for people to actual feel it
and say oh thatâs her story.â
On her relationship with Daniel Ademinokan: âLet me
put it this way. Let me help you hit the nail on the head. One of the
comments I have seen consistently, over and over again, is âStella
snatches somebodyâs husbandâ, âStella the husband snatcherâ, which is
what has been going on. And I had sworn that I would never talk about
it, or even listen or stress myself about this thing but I have decided
to do this now, so that I end this once and for all.
First of all, let me paint a picture for you and you let me know what
makes sense to you. When I looked up the word snatch or steal, ehh,
letâs go to the dictionary. It means, forcefully taking something away
from its original position. Forcefully. From its original position to
another position. Something that does not belong to you. Thatâs what I
gathered from the word snatch or steal.
So I looked at me, Stella, and I wondered to myself, how is it
possible to go to somebodyâs home, and take a man, and take his son,
away from his home and say follow me. You are a man, and according to
their story, he is happily married inside his home. With his family
complete and I walk into that home, to forcefully take a man, abled
bodied man, and a kid, away from somebodyâs hand and you are there
looking at me. How does that work?
Did they accuse me of using voodoo? Yes or no? They said no. Okay,
did I put a gun on anybodyâs head and remove somebody from somewhere?
They said no. So logically, if people actually sit down and think about
it intelligently, how do you snatch somebody from somebody and the
person is there looking at you?
So when you see a man who has settled ties with a woman and decides
to move on with his life and you feel that there is something in this
man that you like and he likes you. I am not a kid. I am 36 years old. I
am not about to start hiding myself. I was waiting for somebody to
actually ask me this question, because all I have heard for the past
two, three years are rumours. They said, blogs said, this said. Nobody
has been bold enough to confront me and ask me. So I say, if I steal
something from somebody, and the person is really the owner of the
thing, you come and ask me, âyou took something from me, give me backâ.
But nobody was able to that. And I am like, if I meet an abled bodied
man that has left and moved on. That is not even in the same house with
whoever and is not doing anything with whoever, and both parties have
decided this thing is not going anywhere, and they have gone their
separate ways, why is it that it easier for the world to blame the woman
that the man has decided to end up with?
Why is it that it is always that woman that scattered that home? The
two people that did things that nobody was there, nobody said something
must have happened between this two people but it is always somebody
else that is the problem. And I always say, I do not tolerate blaming
anybody for your own problems. I have had problems.
After my late husbandâs death, I got married again and the marriage
didnât work. After eight (8) months, it crashed. People didnât hear much
about it, why? We were both mature to understand that we came together,
we knew that the thing was not working, instead of us to become enemies
we will remain friends, letâs just let it go quietly. And we let it go
quietly. I didnât blame anybody else for doing it, he didnât blame
anybody else for doing it. So I am wondering, two people come together
they go their separate ways, this one meets somebody, all of a sudden,
it is that somebody that is the problem. Did anybody ever ask, what went
wrong? Why would a man pick up his son and walk away from his marriage?
Was there anytime another woman was the problem until the man moved
on with another woman? Nobody brought up Stellaâs name, then all of a
sudden, âoh heâs moved on with somebody else (snaps fingers), it must be
herâ. How? I am still waiting for somebody to come with proof to say
âoh when they were still in marriage, when they were still in a house,
you came and did this.â So the reason why I donât like talking about it
is that, there are some things I would say to you and you would look at
me like âoh wowâ but I donât want to be derogatory, I donât want to tow
the line that other people have towed by talking bad about people.
I would never do that but the stories started coming. At first I
ignored it, I just kept quiet, and then it was all over the place,
Google, blogs, and I am like, one day, one day, I would tell my story.
Thereâs a reason why I am respecting certain people, respecting certain
legal issues that are going on. So there might be some things I may not
hammer on, but whenever you hear this person snatched this personâs, you
will ask the person, the person that they said was the original owner,
what was the person doing when they were snatching the person from him
or her? I donât get it. Do you understand?
So I look at it, I am not ugly, I am not dumb. Of all the men in the
world, I will now go and look for somebody elseâs own and say this is
the one I want. If he didnât come out of it and say I want to be with
you and you want to be with me, how? Why would I come and grab� Am I
that bad looking? Am I that old?.â
On if she ever thought she and Daniel, should go their separate ways:
Not at all, not at all. You know why? Because my conscience was clear.
Whatever issues a man has with his wife or whatever, when they deal with
it, they deal with it, I donât come into it. And once you are done with
it, and ready to move on, and you want to move on with me, and I want a
life with you, itâs me and you. I donât care what anybody else is
thinking or saying.
People have said this, it hurt because of the impression people tried
to create but I looked at myself and asked myself, Stella in your heart
do you believe you did anything bad? If my answer is no, then my dear,
there is no looking back. Because I am not a kid for me to make a
decision and say I want to be with this person. If I marry 10, it
concern you? Thatâs what I used to say.
If I have 50 husbands, how does that affect you? Does it change my
work? I do my work, you enjoy it. Enjoy it. Itâs not about what I do in
my bedroom that is your issue because you donât really know what happens
in peopleâs bedrooms. You donât know what happens in marriages, you
donât know why people like us are very weary of people knowing our
business.
You donât know how many marriages are suffering in silence. The issue
of domestic violence that I am fighting for, itâs part of it. There are
marriages that they will tell themselves, especially celebrities we
suffer from that, you are in a marriage and because you are worried
about the press, the media, you stay in. You just stay in, you act, you
play for the camera, you act like everything is okay. Then you get home
and everything is hell because you know the moment you take that bold
step and walk away, the backlash will be so bad.
But you now ask yourself, to stay in and become a monster or to just
quietly live and preserve my sanity. When you leave to preserve your
sanity, then the world wants to make you crazy. You understand. So itâs a
matter of choice. People make choices everyday. Theyâve made theirs, I
have made mine. If you canât deal with it, no problem. It is my life.
Live yours, and I will live mine. And I am Happy. I am not ashamed.
Never a moment of regret.â
