Habibat Jinad, a Nigerian actress well-known in the Yoruba cinema industry, has disclosed why she chose to bleach her skin.
Jinad said on the Talk To B podcast that she was verbally abused by a colleague, Mide Martins, while working on a movie set.
She said that Mide had insulted her and called her a “monkey with a black face”.
Jinad claims that people always tell her to “lighten up” because of her dark complexion.
She went on to say that she “decided to change after Mide insulted me” in order to please others.
“We were at Afeez Owo’s rehearsal ground and a colleague of mine did something wrong which I was not a part of,” she said.
“They told us to kneel down. Mide Martins, my boss and some other people were there. Mide Martins insulted me and called me someone with a black face.
“She said so many things to abuse me and I felt very bad. I later found out that she called me a monkey with a black face.
“I’m sure that till now she might not know that what she said to me the other day somehow affected me.
“Even before then, whenever I was on set, people would say that I’m too dark-skinned and that I need to lighten up.
“So after Mide insulted me, I thought about what I could do to make these people happy. So I decided to change.”
Jinad had previously said she would no longer continue to bleach her skin.
“Nobody can bully me again into using bleaching cream. I’m not bleaching my skin anymore,” she said on Instagram.
