Celebrity couples: Marriage made in Nollywood

With their engagement last week and a wedding planned for sometime in November, Adesua Tolulope Oluwaseun Etomi and Olubankole Wellington (Banky W for short) have joined the now growing list of entertainers who found love in the industry where they are both players.

Although Banky W is better known as a singer, his effort in the groundbreaking box office movie, The Wedding Party (TWP) and the fact that he has gone ahead to train as a movie director qualifies him to be listed as member of the Nollywood fraternity, where Adesua have found a comfortable spot for herself.

Adesua and Banky’s love story began in June 2015 when, as Banky revealed in the now widely circulated ‘engagement proposal letter,’ he was smitten by Adesua’s “grace, aura and beauty.”

He added: “So smitten, in fact, that even though I didn’t get to say a word to you that day (because you were seated far across the room), I immediately called my best friend @captdemuren and told him I’d found my next girlfriend. LOL. He laughed.

“I asked one or two people about you…. your manager, Isioma, who I’d worked with previously, and then I did some research myself. Googled you, stalked your instagram.

“The whole nine yards, and the more I found out, the more you seemed like a breath of fresh air.”

Time passed and Adesua and Banky became an item. What was intriguing was that they kept the whole love story to themselves and perhaps among a few friends.

The nosy entertainment press couldn’t point to Adesua and Banky being an item even after they literarily got engaged in Banky’s “Made For You” music video and when they were both cast to get married in TWP.

But in February this year, Banky W popped the big question, asking Adesua for her hand in marriage and he got a ‘yes’ as answer from the delectable actress, who is having a good run in moviedom.

In fact, Adesua, who has so far graced the credit lines of some of Nollywood critically-acclaimed movies, such as Ayamma, Knocking on Heavens Door and lately, TWP, is clearly one of the most sought after actresses in the industry.

With their engagement last week and planned wedding, Adesua and Olubankole would join the likes of Olu and Joke Jacobs; Patrick and Iretiola Doyle; Zack and Ngozi Orji; Norbert and Gloria Young; Tchidi and Nuella Chikere; Gbenro and Osa Ajibade; Chris and Damilola Attoh; and Iyke and Florence Okechukwu, who met in moviedom and got married.

Olu And Joke Jacobs
If an award for the long-standing celebrity and Nollywood couple is to be given, then it should rightly go to Oludotun and Ajoke Jacobs.
‘Uncle Olu’ and ‘Auntie Joke,’ as younger colleagues call them, have been married for over 30 years.

Interestingly, they are both active players in the industry and very busy at that. They have featured in many Nigerian movies, participated in several projects and won both local and international awards, including the national honours of Member of the Federal Republic (MFR).

In spite of the temptation that comes with the terrain, Olu and Joke Jacobs have continued to wax stronger together.

Patrick And Iretiola Doyle
Patrick and Iretiola Doyle are two other ‘lovebirds’ and off and on screen celebrities who have been married for over decade.

Both top entertainment personalities met on the job and have remained inseparable since they exchanged marital vows.

Zack And Ngozi Orji
Popular Nollywood actor, Zack Orji, has been married to Ngozi, his beautiful wife and mother of his three lovely children, for close to two and a half decades now.

Both of them are notable players in the industry (Ngozi is an actress), but it is Zack who is more on the field. But they have both lived as a perfect couple and as ‘Siamese twins,’ as an observer quipped, and they have carried on so well as man and wife.

Norbert And Gloria Young
Actor, Norbert Young, and his better half, Gloria, nee Anozie, have been married for over a decade now and they have continued to live happily as man and wife and as parents to their beautiful children.

Not a few people thought they were going to be married for this long, but they have shown that it takes only two to tango and that the survival of any marriage is not in the hands of book makers, but in the hands of those who took the decision to become man and wife.

Iyke And Florence Okechukwu
Both of them stars of the popular Tinsel series on MNET, Iyke Okechukwu and former Florence Uwaleke met and fell for each other on the set of Tinsel.

They got married in 2014 and welcomed their first child in 2015 and have remained inseparable.

Tchidi And Nnuella Chikere
Notable director, writer, singer and actor, Tchidi Chikere, and Nollywood actress, Nnuella Njuibigbo, became an item in 2013 and by 2014, Tchidi quit his marriage and got hooked to Nuella.

They welcomed their first child as a couple in 2015 and have remained as man and wife.

Gbenro And Osas Ajibade
Actor, Gbenro Ajibade, and notable show host and actress, Osas Ighodaro, met on the set of Tinsel and got married in New York in 2015.

They have remained man and wife since then.

Chris And Damilola Attoh
Like Gbenro and Osas, and also like Iyke and Florence, Ghanaian actor, Chris Attoh, and Nollywood actress, Damilola Adegbite, also met and fell in love on the set of Tinsel.

They got married in 2013 and had a son, who they named Brian, in 2014.

Nothing, since then, has been able to come in between this couple that Tinsel joined, as they have remained man and wife.

Ejike And Oge Asiegbu
Popular Nollywood actor and former president of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Ejike Asiegbu, and his better half, Oge, met in the industry over a decade and half ago.

Blessed with children, Ejike and Oge have remained married, and as Ejike once hinted, ‘divorce will never be an option’ for them.

In other words, it is till death for them.