Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde is one of the two or three most recognizable female faces to ever come out of the Nigerian movie industry. And this is not open to argument. She is up there with Genevieve (in direct comparison with Nigerian music, these two feels like Wizkid and Davido, but for Wizkid and Davido, when legends of the show such as Fela and 2Baba are mentioned, Wizkid and Davido leave the room; when acting legends are called in, Omotola and Genevieve remain at the table. Other actresses who can be mentioned in this class include Ini Edo, Mercy Johnson, and Rita Dominic and it feels like it is already too crowded for their admission). Omotola began acting in 1995 and in the three decades of her career took part in hundreds of movies and entertained millions in Nigeria, the rest of Africa, and beyond. Writing about Omotola whom fans call Omosexy is an art in summary writing as there are tonnes of articles chronicling her life and career across two centuries. So we will just take about her age, marriage, daughters, and career.
Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde – age
Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde was born on February 7th, 1978. Omotola’s parents, Oluwashola Jalade and Oluwatoyin Oguntade-Jalade are from Ondo State. The couple, middle-class Nigerians who work in the city, birthed five children in all. Omotola is child number three. Omotola had her primary and secondary school in Lagos, completing it in Command Secondary School, Kaduna. For higher education, she began at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife then completed it in Yaba College where she earned a degree in estate management. She finished in 2004 when she was already famous, having struggled to combine acting, motherhood, and education.
Omotola’s father passed away in 1991. Omotola is 41 years old.
Marriage and kids
Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde got married when she was 18 years old in 1996. She got married to the pilot Matthew Ekeinde on a plane, mid-flight between Lagos and Benin-City. The marriage is blessed with four kids namely Princess, M.J, Meraiah, and Michael Jalade. The first daughter, Princess Ekeinde was born in March 1997.
In January 2019, aged 19, Meraiah Jalade, the third born and second daughter graduated from Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus. According to Omotola who announced this via Instagram, the girl bagged two degrees – associate of art degree in Merchandise Product Development and a bachelor’s of Science in Business Management.
“I can’t wait to see where Next your journey takes you,” the excited actress said about her daughter. We too can’t.
Her first son Michael is also a graduate, bagging a degree in communication and media from the same Eastern Mediterranean University as his sisters.
Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde – career
Omotola’s career began in 1995. It was said that she accompanied a friend to an audition and the producers liked her and included her in the film not just part of the cast but the lead role. The director of the movie, Reginald Ebere has claimed, and rightly so, that he launched Omotola’s career. In the same year, Omotola was also the lead in the film “Mortal Inheritance” in which she played the role of a sickle cell anemia patient who survived the disease to live a normal life. With this, her career in Nollywood was solidified. Not even marriage and childbearing that followed in the next two years could derail her on her way to legendary stardom.
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Over the years, Omotola has featured in hundreds of films including “Lost Kingdom”, “Games Women Play”, “When Love Dies”, “Blood Sisters”, “A Kiss from Rose” etc. In 2004, Omotola joined Genevieve, Ramsey Nouah, Emeka Ike, Jim Iyke, Nkem Owoh, Stella Damasus, and Richard Mofe Damijo, all A-list actors who were blacklisted by the powerful marketers for charging too high and holding the producers to ransom. Like Genevieve, Omotola joined the music industry and released her first album titled “Gba” in 2005. Omotola has three albums to her name as of date, although you would struggle to find one person who can sing any line of her song. Music was never her calling although you cannot say she didn’t make anything out of it. In 2012, she launched her second album in a party where table tickets were to be sold for as high as one million naira.
More on her career
The ban of the stars known as the G8 coincided with the influx of new stars such as Tonto Dike, Mike Ezuruonye, Desmond Elliot in the industry, and the quality of Nollywood fell because it became too cheap to make movies that movies were churned out like toilet soap, and piracy was at its peak. With cinema and DSTV gaining a stronger foothold in the industry, two Nollywoods emerged – the cheap one and the Cinema/DSTV via Africa Magic Originals and Iroko TV (not forgetting Wale Adenuga Productions on NTA). Omotola was the founding member of the new Nollywood as she was a part of the cast of “Ijé: The Journey” with Genevieve which can be said to be the first cinema movie.
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Other movies include “A Tie That Bind”, “A Private Storm”, “Last Flight To Abuja”, “Amina”, “Hit the Floor”, “Alter Ego” etc. In all, Omotola has garnered as much as 40 awards according to Wikipedia although they were able to name less than twenty between Best Actress English won in 1997 at The Movie Awards (THEMA) and the Africa Magic Viewer’s Choice Awards (AMVCA) in 2018 in which she won Best Actress in a Movie/TV Series for her appearance in “Alter Ego”. In 2014, she was honored with the title of Member of Federal Republic, MFR.
Image source: PM News
