Omotola Jalade Ekeinde

EARLY LIFE

Omotola Jalade, who is of Ondo descent, was born in Lagos State. She grew up with her parents and two younger brothers, Tayo and Bolaji Jalade. Her mother, Oluwatoyin Jalade née Amori Oguntade, worked at J.T Chanrai Nigeria, and her father, Oluwashola Jalade, worked at the YMCA and the Lagos Country Club. She attended Chrisland School, Opebi (1981–1987), Oxford Children School (1987), Santos Layout, and Command Secondary School, Kaduna (1988–1993). She had a brief stint at Obafemi Awolowo University and completed her studies at Yaba College of Technology (1996–2004), where she studied Estate Management. She originally wanted a career in business management. However, while awaiting her results from university, she began modelling to earn a living.

PERSONAL LIFE

Omotola married airline pilot Captain Matthew Ekeinde on March 23, 1996, at the Ikeja registry, followed by a white wedding on April 19, 2001, aboard a DASH 7 aircraft flying from Lagos to Benin. The couple has four children: two daughters, Princess and Meraiah, and two sons, M.J. and Michael. She credits her stable family life for her grounded image in the industry. Omotola is a practicing Christian and often shares her faith publicly. She is a dedicated philanthropist and became a United Nations World Food Programme Ambassador in 2005. Her human rights campaign work is centered on her NGO project, the Omotola Youth Empowerment Program (OYEP).

CAREER

Ekeinde was introduced to acting while accompanying a friend to an audition. Her first acting role was in the 1993 film Iva, directed by Reginald Ebere. She was given the lead role in the film. Her first major role was in the film Mortal Inheritance (1996), where she played a sickle-cell patient who fought for her life against small odds of survival. Since then, she has starred in several films, including Games Women Play, Blood Sisters, All My Life, Last Wedding, My Story, The Woman in Me and others. For her role in Mortal Inheritance, she won "Best Actress in an English Speaking Movie" and "Best Actress Overall" at the 1997 Movie Awards. She was the youngest actress in Nigeria at that time to win this. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, she starred in several sequel films, including Lost Kingdom II, Kosorogun II, and Blood Sister II, leading to a grand achiever award from the Global Excellence Recognition Awards in 2004. She was awarded best Actress in a supporting role during the Africa Movie Academy Awards in 2005. After shooting roughly three hundred video movies, Ekeinde received her first cinematic movie role in the 2010 film "Ije". This film was shot at locations in Jos and the United States."Ije" was the highest grossing Nollywood film at the time – A feat later broken by Phone Swap (2012). In 2012, she starred in the Nollywood thriller, Last Flight to Abuja which became the second-highest-grossing movie in West African cinemas in 2012. She has gone on to win over forty domestic and international awards. In 2015, Ekeinde celebrated her 20th anniversary in the entertainment industry, having appeared in about two hundred films. In June 2018, Ekeinde and fellow Nigerian Femi Odugbemi received invitations to be voting members at the Academy Awards. Ekeinde launched a music career in 2005 with the release of her debut album titled "gba". The album produced the singles "Naija Lowa" and "The Things You Do To Me." Her unreleased second album – Me, Myself, and Eyes, brought in production from Paul Play and Del B. It was supported by the songs "Feel Alright", featuring Harrysong, and "Through the Fire", featuring Uche. In late 2012, Ekeinde began working on her third album and enlisted the help of The Bridge Entertainment. She went to Atlanta, Georgia in the United States to work with producers and songwriters who could help create a sound that would resonate with American audiences. She had studio sessions with Kendrick Dean, Drumma Boy and Verse Simmonds and recorded a song with singer Bobby V. In 2012, Ekeinde also launched a reality television show, Omotola: The Real Me, on Africa Magic Entertainment, a M-Net subsidiary broadcast on DStv. She was the first Nigerian celebrity to star in her own reality show.

Omotola was honored as a Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR) in 2014 for her contributions to Nigerian cinema. She was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2013 and is the first Nigerian celebrity with over 1 million Facebook likes.