Popular Nollywood actress Mercy Aigbe has narrated how she almost left the Nigerian movie industry.
According to her, she faced constant sexual harassment from certain producers nearly led her to quit her acting career while narrating her challenges before making her way to the top.
Speaking in an interview with Morayo Afolabi-Brown on ‘Your View’, a talk show on TVC, Aigbe shared her distressing experiences how a producer made passes at her after a movie audition despite earning the role for an upcoming film.
Recalling a particularly disturbing incident, she recounted an encounter with a producer in Surulere who, despite offering her a role in an upcoming film after a successful audition, crossed boundaries that left her deeply unsettled.
“After I had passed three stages of the audition, I was given a minor role, which I told him that was not the character I was auditioning for. “He replied that the director said he did not know me, and that was why he wanted me to be close to him,” she narrated.
She went on to reveal the distressing moment when the producer made unwarranted advances, standing up to touch her.
Expressing her upset at the situation, she admitted, “I was very upset, and I thought if that was what it took to be an actress, I don’t want to be an actress anymore. I tore the script and left.”
The actress further shared the emotional toll this incident took on her, disclosing that she cried on her way home because, at the time, she was already a single mother and had left a well-paying job to pursue her passion in Nollywood.
