Moyo Lawal Claps Back at Critic, Challenges Prostitution Rhetoric

Nigerian actress Moyo Lawal has hit back at an X user who called her a prostitute and a “veteran” who should retire, after she posted photos announcing her return to work.

The exchange began when Moyo shared photos with the caption, “Back to the office… who missed me,” alongside a winking emoji. Hours later, X user King Chidi (@guzu_p) quote-posted the tweet, describing her as an “industry” prostitute with a sex tape “all over the internet,” who had “passed her prime” yet refused to retire and make way for others coming up. He also called her a “bed-to-bed midfielder.”

In her reply, Moyo asked whether his reason for “typing this nonsense” was that she looks “amazing,” or because she “left a man whose feeble brain could not deal with losing me” and who “tried to destroy me in the process.”

She rejected the “industry” label, saying she “came from TV,” that her first job was with a married couple, that her later jobs came through mass auditions, and that she mainly worked with female producers. “Me and sleeping around have absolutely nothing in common, sir,” she wrote, asking whether “a sexy woman who is not married is automatically sleeping around.” 

She added that she was “positive” she has not had as many partners as his current partner, “whatever AGE the person may be.”

In a subsequent post, Moyo widened her criticism to “weak men” throwing “foolish words around.” She wrote that such men “usually end up with highly promiscuous women that just look respectable,” and ended with, “Abeg get away flies.”

Responses like King Chidi’s reflect a familiar pattern in which a woman’s visibility, age and marital status are treated as grounds to question her sexual morality, a form of online misogyny that Nigerian women in the public eye face routinely.