Nollywood actor Ayo Olaiya has fired back at critics who branded him promiscuous after a romantic scene in his movie Brother Jacob, insisting the backlash is unfair and two-faced.
In a video shared on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, the actor said he was tired of being insulted for doing his job. He used the Yoruba slur ashewo okunrin, a harsh label for a promiscuous man, and asked fans to stop throwing it at him.
“I’m not happy. Stop calling me a promiscuous ‘Ashewo Okunrin’. The romantic scene I acted in the movie ‘Brother Jacob,’ if it was in an American movie you were watching, you wouldn’t condemn it. That’s what acting is all about,” he said.
Olaiya argued that Nigerian audiences enjoy the same kind of intimacy in Hollywood films, then turn around to shame local actors when a Yoruba production does it. He also said the attacks follow him no matter the role. Cry too hard and people say he is overacting. Play an action part and they tell him to join the army. Act a love scene and they call him immoral.
The clip split social media. Some users backed him and said nothing an actor does will ever please everyone. Others said Yoruba screen stars should protect ‘omoluabi’ values and not hide behind “it’s just acting.”
One commenter wrote:
“We are Yorùbás my brother, ‘Omoluabi is our ethos’. Our screen actors supposed to teach us morals which we’ve known them to be not this glorified contents he’s doing and calling film.”
The argument is not new. Kissing and bedroom scenes in Nollywood often trigger moral panic even when the same viewers stream foreign films packed with far more explicit material. Olaiya’s point is that the standard changes once the face on screen is Nigerian.
He did not apologise for the scene. He said making romance look real is the work. Whether that settles the Brother Jacob storm is another matter. The insults are still coming, and so is the debate over how far Yoruba cinema should go when love hits the screen.