Popular Nollywood actress Mercy Aigbe has recounted how her sexual harassment experience almost cost her career in the movie industry.
In a recent interview with ‘Your View’ on TVC, Mercy Aigbe
recalled how she had auditioned for a role with a producer who offered her a
minor role instead of the one she had auditioned for.
When she questioned this, the producer said she needed to be
close to him in order to be considered for the role she had originally wanted.
“I once met a producer in Surulere, and I expressed to him
how much I would love to act. He told me he had an upcoming film, and invited
me to his office for an audition. I passed three stages of the audition. After
the last audition, I was given a minor role. I told him that was not the
character I was auditioning for, and he replied that the director said he did
not know me, and that was why he said I should be close to him (the producer),”
she said.
Mercy Aigbe felt this was inappropriate and that she was
being sexually harassed.
She narrated how the producer tried to touch her
inappropriately and how she reacted by ripping up the script and leaving the
office in tears.
She said she felt disrespected and that this experience made
her question whether she wanted to be an actress anymore.
She explained that she had left a well-paying job to pursue
her dream of acting and was a single mother at the time, so this incident was a
major setback for her.
“He had been making passes at me before then, but he did not
come out clean to me until that day. He then stood up and tried to touch me. I
was very upset, and I told him he could not do that to me, because I had earned
the role.
“That was a huge insult to my person, and I thought if that
was what it took to be an actress, I did not want to be an actress anymore. I
tore the script and eventually left. On my way home, I cried because I had left
a well-paying job to join Nollywood, and I was already a single mother at the
time,” she recalled.
However, through hard work and consistency, Aigbe eventually
found success in the industry.
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