When Erica Nlewedim entered the Big Brother House, she came in like any other housemate. Of course, she wanted to win but even her most prophetic side may not have envisioned that she would end up dominating the show and the conversations about the show both online and offline. Here is all you need to know about Erica, the model and actress who may end up winning the show.
Age, education, and lost and found father
Erica was born on 13th March 1994. (There are blogs who put her birthday as March 14th; they are wrong.) She was born in Umuahia the Abia State capital as Erica Ngozi Ugomma Nlewedim. Her parents probably divorced when she was an infant and she was raised by her single parenting mother in Lagos which means she grew up not knowing her father and she never met him until well into her adult life. “I had been searching for my dad,” she said in the diary room on Day 30 of the show. Then someone with her surname hit her Instagram inbox and asked that they be friends. They became friends. Then she asked to meet and they met.
“Then when we met,” Erica continued, “she asked me to speak to her father who had the same name with mine and all of a sudden I found out it was my dad… I was 23 at that time and it was overwhelming and shocking.” Erica has also mentioned that she no longer nurses any ill feelings for her dad whom, while not in her life from the beginning, she was named after (his name is Eric Nlewedim).
Erica attended Victory Grammar School, Lagos and Command Secondary School, Ikeja. She went on to bag a degree in Business Administration from Covenant University. She said she graduated at 19.
Erica Nlewedim’s career before the house
Erica showed an uncanny affinity for modeling and the show biz world while in high school. She hit the entertainment world when she graduated from Covenant University in 2013, aged 19. “No one spent one naira on me since I was 19,” she told Africa Magic media before she entered the house to prove that she was street-smart. She didn’t have to say this to prove anything. Miss Nlewedim is an actress and model and her profile is full of brands and movies that would definitely make any artist twice her age and fame proud.
Don’t take our words for this. Take a look.
List of Erica Nlewedim movies
My Flatmates (on Africa Magic created by Basketmouth and Kayode Peters)
Royal Castle (on Iroko TV)
Being Farouk (produced and starring Kayode Peters)
Made in Heaven (starring RMD, AY, and Blossom)
Secrets and Scandals (on AIT and NTA)
Hire A Woman (starring Nancy Isime, Ifu Enadda, and Alexx Ekubo)
Paternity Deal (starring Buchi and Seun Akindele)
Dead Rites (starring Jim Iyke and Kunle Remi)
Fractured (on Ndani TV)
Win or Lose
Poka Messiah directed by Ernest Obi
Mercy Mercy (self-produced)
List of brands Erica has worked with
Glo
Jumia
MyZotoApp
Zaron Cosmetics
Access Bank
Maltina
Nature’s Gentle Touch
Stanbic IBTC Bank
Travel Beta
Peak Milk
Erica is the founder and CEO of Beluxia Hair
Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria contest
Wondering why her brand is so huge, you may need to hear this. In 2014, Erica participated in the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria pageant. No, she didn’t win but she didn’t have to. She won the most photogenic award among the contestants and that seemed to be enough to blow her brand sky-high.
Ihuoma Nnadi from Akwa Ibom won Miss Nigeria that year. No, you don’t have to Google Ihuoma and begin to say “ojoro”; we Googled her and she is steaming hot. Moreso, pageantries are not just about the face; heights, pose, carriage, intelligence, and all are taken into consideration. Sheath your sword.
Film school in London
Not satisfied with her status as a model and actor and entrepreneur, she went to the United Kingdom, in 2019, to broaden her film education; she attended Met Film School in London. About this, she said: “The school is right in the Ealing studios where parts of big movies… were shot. We got to experience firsthand how the big-budget Hollywood and European movies are produced.”
She further explained thus: “I learned Misner method of acting, improvisation, voice and accent training, monologues, casting, and audition techniques. We were taught by the BAFTA (British Academy Of Film and Television Arts) award-winning director, Jonas Grimes.”
While in the UK, after her film school, she produced a movie titled “Mercy Mercy” in Birmingham which was directed by one Emmanuel Donaldson.
Erica in the house – Content Alert!
Yes, she used to have a boyfriend and she once told him she was HIV positive and sent his heart racing with dread. She wasn’t infected with HIV and he didn’t contact anything from her. She was just being the drama she was. We know for sure she is no longer with this boyfriend but we don’t know if she has a relationship outside. If she has, she hasn’t mentioned it and we haven’t dug it out.
She, however, has a male bestie called Damola whom she chose as the person she missed the most while in the house.
Note: We are not going to cover every single fight Erica had in the house. We would just stick to the major ones.
The Laycon situationship
In the house, Erica met and fell for Kiddwaya, the handsome housemate with a very rich background with a non-faked UK accent to add to his endearing personality. There was another man in the mix. Laycon, the music upstart and Marlian-looking housemate who has the perception of being smart.
Erica likes Laycon but not in a romantic way. She once said she was physically attracted to Kiddwaya but mentally attracted to Laycon. Laycon’s fans were enraged by this rejection and accused Erica of going for the money rather than for the one whom she truly cared about. There were those who felt that Erica was leading Laycon on as part of her strategy to win the show. Some, still, mentioned that if Laycon wins the show, Erica would come crawling back.
See also: Facts about evicted housemate Tochi
This last line didn’t go well with Erica’s fans who call themselves Elites. More than that, it didn’t go well with feminists. Why should it always be a man who would win and a woman crawling back to him? Why can’t Erica win the show and not have to settle for being the handbag of the winner? Why won’t Laycon just win the show for himself rather than in order to spite Erica?
Laycon told Erica to stay away from him as he couldn’t deal with staying close to her and not have her. While Laycon asked her to stay away from him, he didn’t stay away from her and BrightO, the evangelist-looking housemate with a Little Finger character somewhere in him saw what could be Laycon’s tactics. “You are trying to curry pity so that Erica would have sympathy for you and consider you,” he said (paraphrased).
Ebuka once asked Erica if someone was getting hurt in this dramatic triangle and she said she believed Laycon was and that this wasn’t her intention. Laycon claimed in the fifth week that he dreamed that he was kissed by Erica.
You haven’t heard the last of this drama.
Eviction votes by Erica
Big Brother introduced a novel way of evicting housemates. Rather than have housemates nominate fellow housemates for eviction, he puts everyone (besides the HOH and the DHOH) for eviction. Then Ebuka would have the bottom four voted by the fans to stand up and then Big Brother would ask the other housemates to vote for the two whom they want to see go home.
On the first eviction night, Praise, Ka3na, Lilo, and Eric were up for eviction. Erica voted to evict Eric and Lilo. Lilo and Ka3na were evicted and sent away.
On the second eviction night, Trikytee, Eric, Kaisha, and Tochi were up for eviction. Erica voted to evict Tochi and Kaisha. Tochi and Eric went home.
On the third eviction night, Trikytee, Kaisha, Wathoni, and Neo were up for eviction. Erica Nlewedim voted to evict Wathoni and Kaisha. Kaisha went home.
On the fourth eviction night, Trikytee, Praise, Wathoni, and Vee were put up for eviction. Erica voted to evict Vee and Wathoni. At the end of it all, Praise and Wathoni had the same score (six votes each). Kiddwaya was called into the diary room to cast the head of house tiebreaking vote which resulted in Praise going home in a day that was his late brother’s birthday.
For the sixth eviction, after evicting Brighto, Tolanibaj, and Wathoni, Big Brother reverted to the age-long style of having housemates nominate fellow housemates for eviction. Erica nominated Laycon and Vee. It turned out to be her last eviction activity.
HOD and romance with Kiddwaya
Erica won the head of house challenge and became the head of house in week four and she chose Kiddwaya to be her deputy housemate and share her head of house room and lounge with her. Laycon who for a moment thought he would be chosen as DHOH had approached Erica and pleaded with her not to choose him.
Kiddwaya and Erica are really close in the house and have kissed and made out multiple times with one of their sessions going viral. In this viral video clip, it appeared that Kiddwaya was fingering Erica and she had her mouth agape with the bittersweet pleasure of the moment. In defense of her, former Big Brother (Peper Dem) housemate, Leo, said she was only acting. Mischief makers uploaded this video on Pornhub but it has since been pulled after Erica media handlers complained to the porn site.
After her tenure as the Head of House, Erica was ineligible for another Head of House challenge. Her man, Kiddwaya won the challenge and in keeping to his agreement with Erica, chose Tolanibaj as his deputy (Erica wasn’t eligible for the Deputy Head of House being the immediate past head).
Erica won Head of House in what would be her last week in the house. She chose Prince to be the DHOH after Kiddwaya seemingly gave her the signal to that effect.
More about Erica in the house
Erica is not the quarrelsome type in the house but she has had moments where she had to shout and push back at some offending housemate. In a fight with Wathoni, the Kenyan-born Nigerian housemate, the latter claimed she has a son outside and should not be disrespected. Erica asked her to act like she has a son outside. Wathoni twisted this to mean that Erica insulted her son.
There has also been clashess with Lucy in the house.
Erica is a party rocker in the house dance floor. Show anchor Ebuka once tweeted this:
I guess now we know Erica doesn’t need booze to rock a party 👌🏾
— Ebuka Obi-Uchendu (@Ebuka) August 22, 2020
Before coming into the house, Erica said, “I want to be remembered as sweet, talented, hard-working, God-fearing.” If the last two phrases make you smile, join the one million queue.
Erica on the verge of disqualification?
On Sunday, the 23rd of August, Erica hit what can be said to be the lowest period of her stay in the Lockdown house. She was issued two strikes by Big Brother. As three strikes would get you disqualified, Erica is one wrong foot out of the lockdown house. What did she do?
1, she whispered in the house which is against Big Brother rule and she had been warned by Big Brother before for whispering with Kiddwaya and they got away with the light punishment of losing their BB coins. This time around, it earned Erica a strike.
2, Erica slept in the head of house’s bed till 3am while she was not the head of house nor the deputy head of house. This is against Big Brother’s rules and she was punished for it with a strike. Of course, Kiddwaya didn’t get away with his offence of allowing a non-DHOH sleep on his bed. He was given a strike and barred from contesting head of house challenges for three weeks.
Erica said this about her strikes and it echoes: “My mistake is their entertainment; if I didn’t make the mistake, the show would be boring.”
It is so like Big Brother: You are on top of your game one moment and then on the verge of disqualification the next moment. Big Brother’s house is what it is, the devil’s house.
Get a very long spoon, Ngozi.
Well, Erica disregarded this last line and was issued a strong and final warning for showing middle fingers to the cameras during one of her sexual romps with Kiddwaya. Kiddwaya got a strike for this.
Erica’s Black Sunday
On Saturday the 5th of September, 2020, the Big Brother Naija party happened as usual with Saturdays but there was something unusual in the mix. Gordon’s Spark. Erica in the past had shown to be one with a lower capacity to handle alcohol without messing up. A week earlier, she had a crying outing in which she cussed Kiddwaya out and accused him of always been about sex with her and that he disrespected her with other female housemates.
But nothing could prepare us for the madness that Erica displayed after the first September party. It is not sure what triggered it. Many claim that it was Nengi’s flirting with Kiddwaya that upset her but when she lost it, it wasn’t Nengi that she attacked. It was Laycon.
She called him many unprintable things including threatening his life. The last straw for her was Laycon’s supposedly telling everyone that Erica tried to kiss him many times to which she only remembered once under the influence of alcohol.
She provoked Laycon to go physical with her.
She prevented Prince the DHOH from sleeping on the Head of Houe bed by pouring water on his side of the bed.
She packed her bags and left the Head of House quarters adding that she was fed up with the show.
She tried to communicate with the production team.
She entered the diary room without consultation.
The list is endless and no words can explain what happened on that Sunday morning. The ravings and rantings of Erica lasted five hours. No words can come close to doing justice to these. Not even video clips. If you missed the show, you did and your only remedy is to turn back the hands of time.
By 7PM, just before the eviction show, Big Brother issued Erica her third and final strike and disqualified Erica and sent her out of his house.
As at the time of updating this post, Erica’s Gofundme has raised over 15,000 dollars. That’s seven million naira and counting.
Image source: News Dey
Note: Erica’s storyline is an active one as the Big Brother Lockdown show is ongoing. We are always updating this as we watch the show intently.
