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There are people whose job in life seems to be making other people happy. They walk into a room and light it up. They appear on television and you find yourself smiling. They make you laugh when you are tired, lift your spirits when you are low and, sometimes, make you forget your own troubles.
Funke Akindele is one such person. But who makes Funke happy? Who wipes away her tears when the laughter stops? Who consoles the woman who has become a Nollywood phenomenon, a box-office queen and, in the eyes of millions, a walking institution of happiness?
These questions came into sharp focus in her appearance on CNN’s Glo-sponsored African Voices. The programme, which has for years brought the stories of remarkable Africans to international audiences, offered more than the familiar celebrity profile. In a candid conversation with Larry Madowo, Funke opened a window into the private chambers of her life. She spoke about the tears behind the triumph, the vulnerability behind the confidence and the human being behind the celebrity.
That is the value of African Voices. It takes accomplished Africans beyond the headlines and the public image, giving viewers an opportunity to encounter the people, experiences and convictions behind their achievements. And with Globacom’s longstanding sponsorship, a Nigerian telecommunications company is helping to keep an important African storytelling platform in the global conversation.
In this edition, the story was Funke Akindele: the woman who makes millions laugh but has her own moments of pain.
She admitted that life sometimes knocks her down. She cries. She locks herself in her room. She breaks down, hits the bed and allows the tears to flow. Then, somehow, she gathers herself and returns to life.
“I cried, I locked myself in the room, cry, break down, hit the bed, but I just pick myself and come back to life,” she said, as reported from the conversation.
What a confession! Not because crying is unusual, but because of the person saying it. The public is accustomed to seeing Funke as an irrepressible entertainer, seemingly equipped with an inexhaustible supply of comic electricity. It is easy to forget that the comedian, too, has a private life. The woman who makes millions laugh can go home and cry.
The world sees the performance. It rarely sees the price.
Funke has lived under the glare of public scrutiny. Her relationships, marriages and personal decisions have at various times become subjects of public conversation. In the age of social media, where everybody is a commentator and private pain can become public entertainment, the pressure can be relentless.
She has spoken about the fear of being judged and the need to stop surrendering her life to other people’s opinions. People will talk when one succeeds and when one fails; when one marries, separates, rises or stumbles. Making public approval the condition for happiness can become a prison without an exit.
Funke appears to be learning to put her well-being first. She is learning to love herself and to recognise that the woman behind the public image deserves care and attention too.
Another revealing part of the conversation concerned her relationship with work. For years, work seemed to occupy almost every corner of her life. She could arrive at the office in cornrows, a face cap, slippers or sneakers and get straight down to business. Her mind was on the next production, the next assignment and the next creative challenge.
Now, she is becoming more intentional about herself. She wants to look good, take care of her appearance, enjoy her femininity and rediscover parts of herself that may have been neglected in the relentless pursuit of professional excellence.
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To appreciate the journey behind this conversation, it is worth remembering where Funke is coming from. Born on August 24, 1977, in Ikorodu, Lagos, she did not become a star overnight. Many Nigerians first noticed her in the television series I Need to Know, where she played Bisi in an educational drama.
Then came Jenifa in 2008. What a turning point!
Jenifa was not just another character in another Nigerian movie. With her distinctive accent, hilarious expressions, comic misadventures and determination to make something of herself, she became a cultural phenomenon. Funke created a character audiences could recognise, laugh with and identify with.
But she did not allow Jenifa to become a cage. She turned the character into a launching pad, evolving from actress to producer, filmmaker and entrepreneur. She built her creative machinery and demonstrated a sharp understanding of the business of entertainment.
Her films have become major box-office events. Her productions have helped show that Nigerian audiences will turn out in large numbers for home-grown stories told with ambition and scale. She has helped demonstrate that Nollywood can invest in its productions, tell its own stories and compete for attention beyond Nigeria’s borders.
That is no small achievement. Yet the most compelling part of her story is not the box-office numbers. It is the woman who has had to keep getting up to make those numbers possible.
There is also a larger story behind the platform that brought this conversation to audiences around the world. CNN’s African Voices, sponsored by Globacom, has showcased remarkable personalities, innovators, entrepreneurs and cultural achievers from across the continent. Its value lies in telling African stories with an international reach, allowing the world to meet the people shaping the continent’s culture, enterprise and imagination.
Globacom deserves recognition for supporting such a platform over the years. Corporate sponsorship is most meaningful when it does more than advertise a product: when it helps create space for talent, ideas and stories to travel. Through African Voices, a Nigerian brand is associated with the celebration of African achievement and the projection of African voices to a global audience.
My favourite CNN and Glo African Voices will have to be the interview with my friend the Nigerian literary giant and Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka who is always fun to interview due to his ability to open up.
The choice of FunkeAkindele makes this edition especially fitting. She represents the energy, enterprise and creative ambition of contemporary Nigeria. Her journey from television actress to one of Nollywood’s most influential filmmakers is itself an African success story. But the interview added another dimension: it showed that behind the professional triumph is a woman still learning, adjusting and finding her way.
That, perhaps, is the most important takeaway. Success is not the absence of struggle. Fame does not cancel vulnerability. A person can be admired by millions and still have private battles to fight.
Funke Akindele is a star, a formidable actress, producer and filmmaker. She is also a woman who cries in her room, reflects on her choices and sometimes has to remind herself to get up and live again.
That is the Funke Akindele worth celebrating: not only the entertainer who makes people laugh, but the human being who has learnt to laugh again after crying. Not only the woman who has conquered the Nigerian box office, but the woman discovering that taking care of herself is another important assignment.
The world needs her laughter. But she deserves her own happiness, too.
And thanks to CNN’s African Voices and its Nigerian sponsor, Globacom, we are given a closer look at the woman behind that laughter: the woman who cries, rises and conquers again.
