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Woman Crush Sunday(WCS) : Omotola Jalade Ekeinde


This is  Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, a top Nigerian actress, Singer, philanthropist and former model. She is fondly called Omo sexy and is popularly known as a pioneer of the video film era of Nigerian Cinema. The beautiful actress who hails from Ondo State was born on the 7th of February, 1978 in Lagos State to a family of five, to Mr Oluwatoyin Jalade who worked at the YMCA and the Lagos country club; and to Mrs Oluwatoyin Jalade who worked at J.T Chanrai Nigeria.

 Omotola attended Chrisland school and Oxford Children school for her primary education (1981- 1987) Santos Layout and Command Secondary school Kaduna. She had a brief stint at Obafemi Awolowo University but completed her studies at Yaba College of Technology (1996-2004) where she studied estate management. She began to work as a model  before launching her on- screen career. She came into prominence through the 1995 film, " Mortal Inheritance", her performance in this movie earned her several awards such as Best Actress overall at the 1996/1997 Thema Awards. In the late 90's and early 2000's the popular actress starred in different films such as Lost kingdom1&2, Korsorogun, Blood sisters1&2, By the mid 2000's Omotola had catapulted into A- list status. 

In 2005, she was awarded Best Actress in a supporting role during the African Movie Awards. In the same year, Omotola launched a long awaited music career with the release of her debut album: GBA featuring singles like " Naija Lowa", "The things you do To me", Me, Myself and Eyes". Omotola is wife to Pilot Matthew Ekeinde, they have been married since 1996, Together they have four children, Princess Ekeinde, Matthew Jnr Ekeinde, Meraiah Ekeinde and Michael Ekeinde.


Apart from being an on screen performer, she has passion for writing, she was offered her own column in Ok! Nigeria; this column is now famous and labelled Omotola's Diary featuring writings about her life, experiences and personal viewpoints. She has other written works which include personal poems, Co- written scripts for many of the films in which she has starred. In the early 2010's, Omotola starred in several high grossing films which saw record breaking success such as " Ije", " Last Flight to Abuja", earning Omotola another box office record and a new Nick name: Cinema box office Queen. Omotola has gone on to win over forty (40) domestic and international awards.

In 2011, Omotola was invited to attend the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, CA in recognition of her work with Amnesty International and her song" Barren Land", in 2012 October 27, She was awarded the Black Entertainment Film Fashion Television and Arts BEFFTA Icon award, this award was given for her outstanding contributions to the global film industry, according to Omotola this was the best award she had received on a global level. Since late 2012, Omotola has been starring in her own reality TV show titled "Omotola: The Real me", airing on Africa's most popular network, Africa magic TV, this has made Omotola the first Nigerian to ever have a reality television show. In 2013, Omotola's popularity which was still rising had passed the one million likes on Facebook; shortly after, it was announced that Omotola was named one of TIME magazine's most influential people in the world on the 2013 Time 100. Currently, she is worth 3 million dollars.

In (2015), Omotola celebrated her 20th anniversary in the entertainment industry. She has appeared in over three hundred (300) movies. In June (2018), Omotola alongside Femi Odugbemi, received invitations to join the Oscars in the year (2018) voting members.  On the 15th of August 2020, It was reported that she contracted the Corona virus and had even infected one of her son's, she was placed on Isolation and had since been responding to treatments.

Omo- sexy as she is fondly called is a philanthropist, she runs an NGO project called Omotola Youth Empowerment Project (OYEP). This NGO brings youths together for the Empowerment walk and convention, one of the organization's famous projects is the 20 widows make over;  this project received a nomination for Best Charity/ Cause Related event at the Nigerian event awards in 2012, this project continues to operate in remembrance of Omotola's late mother. Her Philanthropy continues with Save the Children UK, Enough is Enough and Amnesty Interactional ( working for causes like the Mortality struggle in Sierra Leone and the own up, pay up and clean up campaign for Niger Delta.

Omotola Jalade Ekeinde who is a complete definition of beauty with brains has propelled ladies everywhere throughout the nation, in her words" Everybody will try to knock you down but only you can see where you are going, so you must be strong and keep going". 

Beauty is good but having a working brain to go with it is better. You decide now! The future is female!


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