by Roqeebah Olaoniye

Not many people know this, but Shan George starred in a soap opera titled Winds of Destiny before she became widely popular for her role in the feature film, Outkast. 

In fact, before Outkast, she’d produced her own movie, All for Winnie, in her final year of University in 1998. She was a student of Mass Communications at the University of Lagos at the time. Which probably explains her versatility in the entertainment industry. She’s had a two-decade long experience in the industry during which time she has been an actress, a singer and a dancer.

She made a musical debut in 2010 with her album, Dance.

Born and raised in Cross Rivers to a British father who she didn’t know, and a Nigerian mom, Shan has described herself as “an ordinary person who was born and brought up in the village, grew up like every other village girl and was privileged to  be part of the movie industry at a time [I] found myself in it.” She once travelled to England to look for her birth father in Manchester to no avail and finally gave up the hopes of finding him at the age of 35.

Despite her many personal challenges in life, Shan George managed to carve out a great career for herself, especially from the late 90s through the early millennium.

In 2011, Shan George got married at a private ceremony. She got into her first marriage at the age of 16 in 1985,  giving birth to two sons before the marriage ended in 1991. She was reported to have been involved with an Anthony Nwosisi but that cannot be confirmed.

In 2016, she said in an interview that despite the turbulent experiences she’d had with relationships, she was “ready to marry 20 times until she found a man who’d really love her.

When asked about her absence from the scene, Shan elaboraed that the gap began in 2011 when her mother fell critically ill in the middle of a film project she was working on – Finding Good Luck. She disclosed that she had to drop everything to see to her mum’s well-being and that lasted almost three years from 2011 to almost 2013.  Finding Goodluck eventually landed her a Best Film of The Year Award in 2914 at the Cross River Movie Awards.

She got back into the industry early 2015 when she started working on shooting the movie ‘One Good Man’, which premiered in Abuja on the 31st of July 2016.

These days, you can find Shan George via her Instagram where she regularly updates her over 48,000 fans about her new work or just random tidbits about her life.

Roqeebah

Creative mind. Enthusiast. Learner. Multipotentialite. And here, an assistant editor.