Afrobeats superstar Davido has shared a raw and dramatic account of his first painful encounter with the dark side of fame, recalling a moment in Ghana that left him so overwhelmed he seriously considered jumping from a balcony.
Speaking on The VIBE Q interview with Vibe, the “Unavailable” singer recalled the incident that happened barely two months after his breakout records exploded. At the time he had only released one or two songs, yet they were already among the biggest on the streets and earned him a booking in Ghana.
The reception that greeted him on arrival stunned him.
“It’s like Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber type. So I’m like, yo, we lit,” he said.
Every week brought new milestones and he was riding the high of sudden success.
“Every week is just something new. I’m excited. I’m like, yo, I’m blowing up every week. We’re going higher in the charts.”
The attention from women also overwhelmed him. During a night out at a club, he had what he described as his first groupie experience.
“It was my first groupie… that was like my first rodeo in that. And then I remember it was just a great night.”
The next morning the mood changed completely. His manager banged on the hotel room door while he was still asleep and told him to stay calm. The woman he had spent the night with had taken a picture of him sleeping and shared it after her friends refused to believe she was with Davido.
Calls immediately started flooding in.
“My daddy was calling me. My sisters were calling me,” he recalled.
The shock of the exposure pushed him to the edge.
“If I saw balcony that day, I would have jumped. I was going crazy,” Davido said.
Looking back, he attributed the painful lesson to his youth and lifestyle at the time.
“I was young and I liked women too much. God had to show me at the time.”
His advice to young stars remains simple and direct:
“You’re young, you’re famous, you’re a target. Even if you want to have fun, take their phones.”
In the same wide-ranging conversation, Davido also explained why he often chooses to dress and move around like an ordinary person despite his global fame and family wealth.
“I’ve been on jets. I’ve been in all these places since I was a baby. I’ve been seeing money since I was a baby. So all these things don’t really excite me,” he revealed.
He recounted a moment in the South of France when he simply put on slippers and shorts and stepped out without even wearing his watch. When his label representative later suggested he needed to “package more” and make every appearance feel special, Davido’s response was straightforward:
“Bro, I’m hungry. Why does it have to be a moment? I’m hungry. I want to eat. There’s nothing about moments here. Sometimes, I like to live like a regular person.”
The singer added that even though he owns luxury cars in Atlanta, he still enjoys the simple freedom of jumping into a Toyota and heading to Publix for groceries.
During the course of the conversation, Davido went further to claim a unique place among children of the ultra-rich.
“They love the grass-to-grace story, the young boy that was poor and became rich. But which other billionaire’s child do you know in the world, not talking about Africa, that has made a name for himself and also made a lot of money? You can’t count, you can’t name one apart from me.”
On the subject of his own children, the father of several kids expressed hesitation about them following in his musical footsteps.
“I’m not sure I want any of my children to pursue music, because I know what I went through. Though, I don’t want to block any of their dreams.”
The interview comes as Davido continues to dominate the Afrobeats scene and the release of his latest album, Oriade. His candid reflections have already sparked heavy conversations online about privilege, privacy, the pressures of fame, and the true cost of building a personal empire while born into wealth.