By Zera Nambu
Nigerian music star Simi has responded to a social media controversy regarding several of her old posts from 2012 and 2013. The singer stated that her words are being “twisted” and misinterpreted by online trolls who are trying to damage her reputation.
The controversy began after Simi spoke out strongly against rape and sexual violence against women, following a recent “Mirabel TikToker” case.
In her posts, Simi called for rapists to be castrated and shared that almost every woman she knows has faced sexual assault. In response to her strong stance, some users on X (Twitter) dug up her old tweets from over a decade ago to claim she was being “inappropriate.”
Simi explained that, back in 2012, she was not yet famous and was living with her mother while helping out at her mother’s daycare center. She said the tweets were simply funny or cute observations about the children she looked after. One tweet mentioned a four-year-old boy acting like he had a “crush” on her, Simi clarified that these were innocent stories about daycare life and had no extra meaning.
“Kids can be mischievous. If a child did something I found funny, I tweeted about it. Nothing I tweeted was from perversion,” she wrote in a statement on Sunday. She added that she has never been depraved and that her team decided to delete some of the old posts because they were being used to create false narratives that could hurt her family.
Despite the backlash, Simi insisted that her stance against sexual violence remains unchanged. She told her followers that she has always spoken against rape, even before she became a star.
“It’s not a costume I’m wearing; it’s who I am,” she said.
She concluded by saying she would not allow anyone to change her story or distract from the important message of stopping sexual assault.