Nollywood actress Jemima Osunde has been in the industry for quite some time now. Since bursting into the national conscience with her role in Shuga, she has gone on to amass quite a name for herself. But, one thing that has been the topic of a lot of speculation for many years is Jemima Osunde’s real age. Many people have guessed and today, if you even Google “Jemima Osunde age”, the response that will come out is 26. Even Google has it wrong:
Jemima Osunde is not 26. During an interview with Shoptalk while discussing the topic of ageism, Jemima opened up about her real age and explained why she has hidden it for all these years. Here is Jemima’s real age and why, she explains, she hid it.
On Shoptalk, Jemima Osunde was asked “Culturally, ageism has affected us in so many ways. You look at how the country runs, could it be better if people who were younger were given more authority? Were respected more? But it doesn’t happen because we’ve decided that “Ah, this person is older than you therefore it is their position or their right?” How has that affected you?” Jemima responded:
Yeah, I get that everywhere I go. Everywhere. For the longest time, I didn’t tell anyone my age at work. It was all speculation. No one actually knew how old I was. I’m 23 by the way, I only turned 23 [in 2021] and I only announced it because it was very intentional. But for the longest time, because of what I look like, even when people assumed I was 25 or 26 which is older than I am, they still treated me like I was a baby. So even finding out now, my real age is like a trigger for them. Like okay we were given her the tip of the iceberg before, now just pour the whole mountain on her. And it’s annoying because I feel like age should not be a factor to limit you for anything. Imagine I didn’t say my age and imagine I didn’t look how old I look. Imagine I looked like a 30 year old or whatever, would you disrespect everything I’ve been able to amount for myself? Or accomplish? I feel like it’s basically the way the society in this part of the world, I won’t limit it to Nigeria, Africa as a whole, this cultural factor of “if I’m older than you I can get away with anything. I can do whatever I want, you have to be under me.” In the professional world, I might have come across as rude to a lot of people because if you come into my daddy’s house as my daddy’s friend, I will even kneel down to greet you out of respect. But in the professional world, if we’re on set and we have the hierarchy of what is supposed to work, or even in the hospital or wherever I find myself, if it’s a professional environment, I like to keep it as professional as possible. So it really triggers me when people try to disrespect me or belittle me or downgrade the work that I put in because of my age. It’s a trigger for me. I’m sure it’s probably a trigger for anyone else out there who’s young. It really gets on my nerve. Also because when you now try to speak for yourself, or stand up for yourself, you come across as the rude little girl on set. So it’s just like fire and pouring fuel in it.
So Jemima Osunde is actually 23, not 26. What do you think about her reason for hiding her age all these years? Do you agree with what she said?
