Helen Paul, a Nigerian stand-up comedian, has spoken about how she overcame the societal stigma she endured as a child.
The comedian had said that she was the result of a r*pe.
Helen stated at a recent event that people, including family members, criticized her and even branded her a “bastard” who would never achieve anything worthwhile in life.
She remembered her aunts warning her grandmother, with whom she grew up, not to spend her allowance on her.
Helen, on the other hand, claimed her grandma constantly challenged her to keep focused on becoming someone meaningful in life.
Helen credits her success as “a comedian in Nigeria and a professor in the United States” to her grandmother’s instruction.
“Some of us cannot take rejection. Some of us do not know that the words we say can make someone feel rejected forever but the way it worked for me, it was different. What Yoruba call ‘Akanda omo’, a special child, appointed child,” she said.
“You must have heard before where I shared on a stage saying, I was born out of rape and I grew up with my grandmother, where everybody in the area would call me ‘bastard’. So I grew up hearing that ‘you are a bastard’.
“I grew up seeing my aunties come to give grandma money for feeding and they will tell grandma ‘We are saying you should use this money to take care of one bastard child, we are saying you should use this money to take care of yourself, buy your medicine’.
“Once they leave, mama would turn to me and mama would speak in pidgin ‘you don hear wetin dem aunty dem dey talk, na like so this world be o. Na people wey suppose be your mama blood be that oh but dem don tell you who be. If you like grow up, forget yourself, say person no do well, nobody they celebrate ham’.
“But I realize that everytime I offended mama, she would not want to touch me because they have warned mama not to beat me. So you think a child looking at different people talk will grow up with love? oro ni, orokoro. E mo fojudimi o! A comedian in Nigeria, a professor in the United States.”
