Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde Misquoted to Portray Husband as “Traditional” on Gender Roles

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Claim: An X user claimed that Nollywood actress Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde said her husband told her that “traditionally, a Man is not supposed to go to the market,” but that she told him she was “not gonna go.”

Verdict: False. In the interview clip attached to the post, Jalade-Ekeinde said the opposite; her husband did not say a man should not go to the market. He goes to the market himself, and she stays away because of her celebrity status. The claimant altered her words, handed her husband a traditional stance he never took, and used the altered quote to fuel attacks on both of them.

Full Text

On Oct. 8, 2026, an X user, Proper9ja Boy (@Proper9jaboy), posted a video clip bearing the Channels Television logo, with this text:

“My husband is actually the one who goes to the market to buy foodstuffs. I can’t go to the market because of my celebrity status. My husband told me that traditionally, a Man is not supposed to go to the market, but I told him I’m not gonna go.”  

The post, archived here, credited the words to Omotola Jalade.

When Naija Feminists Media (NFM) reviewed it on Oct. 11, 2026, the post had 604,000 views, 560 replies, 599 reposts, 2,500 likes and 767 bookmarks.

Many replies built on the altered quote. Mr Whoo (@Mis_androgynist) wrote: 

“When you are weak as a man, you will always get the humiliation you deserve,” adding that a woman who says she would not play her traditional role “should have been divorced at the instance of her mooting the idea.” 

The Diamond (@pipiofthearts) wrote that those who cite Jalade-Ekeinde as an example of a lasting celebrity marriage should consider “the sacrifices her Husband had to make.”

Proper9ja Boy also continued the thread with further commentary on her, writing: “Being real, she’s inconsiderate about most of the things she usually says on podcasts.”

Some users pushed back. Chuks (@chuksjide) wrote: “You are being dishonest; your caption is false, and you know it. 

In the replies NFM reviewed, Proper9ja Boy did not correct or retract the post.

Given the post’s reach and its use of Omotola’s interview to incite misogynistic attacks against her, Naija Feminist Media decided to verify the claim.

NFM Checks

We reviewed the full video attached to the post. It carries the Channels Television logo, and a lower-third identifies the speaker as Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, an entertainment actress. 

Going by what was said in the clip, Omotola said: “But my husband didn’t say, oh, you know, traditionally a man is not supposed to go to the market, I’m not going to go. No. My husband actually goes to the market.”

The clip shows that the traditional line and the “I’m not going to go” line are the words she says her husband did not say. 

The post lifts those same words, drops “didn’t,” and recasts them as what her husband told her and what she refused to do. 

The clip does confirm that her husband does the shopping and that she does not go to the market because of her status. She explained that earlier in her career she used to go with him but stayed in the car because the vehicles were tinted, until someone found out she was inside. 

She described that as a “major security risk,” after which her husband asked her not to come along again. He shops and returns home, she said, and she does the cooking, so the two of them “strengthen each other.”

The clip also ends with Jalade-Ekeinde arguing that a man who feels strong by intimidating, mistreating or holding down his partner is in fact weak. That is the reverse of the replies calling her husband weak for going to the market.

The wording in the clip matches a TheCable report of Aug. 14, 2015, which attributes the remarks to her appearance on Nollywood Uncut, a Channels Television programme, and names her husband as Matthew Ekeinde. 

That report also records her saying her husband did not say a man should not go to the market. The clip is therefore about 11 years old and was shared without a date. 

NFM did not locate the full original broadcast, so the date of the interview rests on the TheCable report and the matching wording in the clip.

We found no evidence, in the clip or in the reports we reviewed, that Jalade-Ekeinde said her husband told her a man should not go to the market, or that she told him she would not go in defiance of his view.

Conclusion

Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde did not say her husband told her a man should not go to the market, and she did not say she told him she would not go. She said the opposite, in the very clip the post carried. 

The altered version, seen by more than 600,000 viewers, turned a statement about partnership into a story of a defiant wife and a weak husband, and it became the basis for replies arguing that women who refuse traditional roles deserve to be divorced.