Adesua Etomi-Wellington: Age, Career, Marriage, Full Bio

Ever since her breakthrough role as Debbie on “Knocking on Heavens Door” back in 2014, Adesua Etomi has become a sort of a household name, lending her name principally to conversations in social media, blogging, and elsewhere for her acting prowess in movies, on TV, and commercials year after year, fame without pause.

From her acting roles to her love life, fans around the world may feel like they know everything about her. And they are not wrong. Adesua has that kind of personality that makes you believe she is one of us. You can ever fully know anyone. So there are plenty of things about “Susu” you have zero ideas about. From the schools she graduated from, to the jobs she did while in the UK, down to one or two scandals she has faced, there is no pretending to be surprised at any Adesua Etomi facts. Here are facts some of which you never knew about Adesua Etomi-Wellington

Age, early life and education

Adesua Etomi was born Tolulope Adesua Etomi in February 1986 in Owerri, in Imo State, South-Eastern Nigeria. 1986 is the year but some publications have erroneously continued to put her year of birth at 1988. Adesua’s father is from the Esan ethnic group from Edo State just like a certain Nancy Isime. Her mother is a Yoruba woman and Adesua is the third of the family’s three children. Adesua grew up in Lagos where she did her primary education at Corona School, Victoria Island after which she entered Queens College. Adesua didn’t earn her WASSCE in Queens College as she left to move to the United Kingdom at the age of 13. Hers is what you would call born with a silver spoon.

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Already precocious as a teenager, Adesua academic excellence continued even in a foreign land as she proceeded to study Drama and Performance at the University of Wolverhampton where she graduated with first-class honors. After university, Adesua Etomi worked briefly in the United Kingdom. She did a 9-5 job in a big fashion store in the UK which turned out to not be her calling. So she returned to Nigeria joining stars just like KC Ejelonu and Seyi Shay who were in the UK at some point in their life/career before seeing the light and heading home.

Adesua Etomi joined Nollywood on her return and the rest is, as they say, history.

Tomboy. You could argue that many Nigerian female celebrities are comfortable to thick this box when you sit down with them and ask them to look back. Just off memory, I can count Simi, Helen Paul, and Tonto Dikeh, all (female) stars, who have said in one time (at least) that they were tomboys at some point in their childhood. For Adesua, she was not just a tomboy but a ridiculous one.

In an exclusive interview with Pulse.ng, the actress said she used to be a ridiculous tomboy. One who abhors female wears. She said, “Basketball playing, football playing, never wearing skirts, never in heels sort of a tomboy,”

Adesua was also a member of her local church choir for 11 years. Wondering why she doesn’t have an album or a Grammy Award under her belt? Wait, maybe she’s cooking up something with her husband.

Adesua Etomi – career

She made her first big-screen appearance in the year 2014 when she was given a significant role in the movie “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” She played “Debbie” in the movie which was where the proverbial bug caught her (or she caught it) and she has not looked back since then. She has gone on to feature in over 20 movies, winning hearts and awards on the way.

As of the time of writing this, Etomi has been nominated for 18 awards and won. These include Nollywood Reinvented Award (2014), Golden Movie Award (2015), Eloy Award (2015), and an AMVCA Best Actress for the romantic film “Falling” directed by Niyi Akinmolayan in which she co-starred with Kunle Remi, etc.

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She has starred in “King Of Boys” where she played the role of shady lawyer and daughter of the corrupt King of Boys Sola Sobowale and got what she deserved – a bullet in the belly. She was in “The Wedding Party” where she starred opposite her would-be husband Banky W. She was in “Falling” for which she won Africa Magic Viewers Choice Award for Best Actress in a Drama (Movie/TV series) in 2016; “A Soldier’s Story”, “Knocking on Heavens Door”, “The Arbitration”, “Ayamma”, “Up North 2018” etc. In December 2019, she starred in “Muna” in which she played a sexual violence survivor who returns from the United States to dish out vengeance to her perpetrators.

Her “Sugar Rush” released in Chritsmas 2019 in the cinema and now on Netflix in which she starred side by side Bimbo Ademoye, Bisola, Mawuli Gavor, Uzor Arukwe, Jide Kosoko, Iya Rainbow, and a host of others stands out in her recent shows.

In April 2019, Etomi was featured on the cover of Vogue Magazine tagged “The Global Issue”. She was featured alongside 13 other women who have accomplished something in their screen career, in Hollywood, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. They include Scarlett Johansson the lead actress in “Marriage Story“, Deepika Padukone an Indian star-actress, the British actress Vanessa Kirby, the Brazilian actress Bruna Marquezine, the Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher, and Lea Seydoux the French movie star, etc.

On Adesua Etomi, Vogue wrote: “Nollywood, the nation’s thriving film community, is filled with well-dressed actresses, but Etomi leads a new generation of women who work locally but think globally. She is the rare leading lady who can move seamlessly between drama and comedy.” They conclude that “U.S. audiences know her best as Nollywood’s rom-com queen.”

Husband: Adesua Etomi married Banky W onscreen off it

The award-winning actress married Banky W both on-screen in the Wedding Party 1 and 2 and later in real life. It was said that Banky W slid into her Instagram DM and started a flame that consumed them both down the aisle. Some account of the love story says that Banky W met Adesua in an event in 2015, became enchanted with her and pursued her love, won it, and married her. Other accounts say that it was after “Wedding Party” that they developed strong chemistry that they carried off-screen.

Banky W and Etomi announced their engagement in February 2017. The two got married in November 2017, having traditional and court wedding in Nigeria and the White Wedding in Cape Town, South Africa.

Image source: PMNewsNigeria