This was one big but avoidable mistake.
Actor Ik Ogbonna, while promoting his new film Excess Luggage, gave an interview where he was asked about cheating. An unnecessary but understandable question considering Ogbonna is happily married and often plays the ‘heartthrob’ in many of his films. Ogbonna launches into this spiel about how cheating differs from ‘breaking one’s vows’. According to him, breaking one’s vows refers to casual sex with a person that is not your wife. He suggests that this kind of sexual encounter is transient and such cannot really harm a relationship. Cheating on the other hand for him is when the physical attraction transmutes into an emotionally charged relationship outside of marriage.
Of course, once the clip hit the internet, it quickly went viral and Nigerians promptly set him straight. And Ogbonna himself came to give this convoluted speech about how he was misquoted (yeah right) and what he meant was that a ‘breaking of vows’ has less severity than cheating but that his general gist was that any form of intimacy outside marriage is a sin. Like really.
Sex without the knowledge and consent of your partner has serious physical consequences – STDs being one of them. We seem to condense stepping out of committed relationships and marriages to a simple matter of a breach of trust, but it could have even more stringent consequences.
One can only wish for a day when Nigerian celebrities would understand it is quite fine to pass on a question.
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