Tayo Faniran is the Nigerian representative for Big Brother Hotshot for 2014. In this interview with journalists, he opened up on happenings in the house and his future plans. JOAN OMIONAWELE brings the excerpts.
It was said that you got 300,000 dollars from a billionaire, just as you returned from South Africa..
You just went straight to the money aspect. I do not have an answer to that yet, but very soon, there will be a confirmation.
Now that the show is over, what’s next for Tayo?
Television has always been my home, I will love to stay around and still be able to entertain people, Africa and the world. I would say I’m an element of entertainment and I want to give the best of my ability to the world. I will like to thank every Nigerian that has supported me and shown enjoy and appreciate it.
While you were in the house, there was a disparity between East Africa and West Africa, and you were angered by it, especially when you ..
While in the house I kept telling people not to watch the show on sentiments. Also, there is no one who hasn’t told me that I’m not the winner. There is a Yoruba adage that says, ta ba wa owo lo, ta ba pade iyi lona, a ma pada lo le ni, tori, to ba rowo tan, iyi ni waa fi ra. It means on your way to look for money, and you find honour, you’ll go back home. Since I got back home, every Nigerian has been proud of me, so I’m the winner.
If you had another chance to go back into the house, what would you do differently?
When I got into the house, the song I wanted to perform first at the opening was Dbanj’s song, ‘on top of the world’. One of my favourite lines from the song was, “looking back now, there’s no regret, looking forward, there’s no regret, I wouldn’t change a thing, even if I could, I’m stronger now.” There is nothing I would have changed. I did my best, I was myself, maybe sometimes, I made a few mistakes, and there is no perfect person in this world, I made my mistakes, but I fixed them and made sure I did not repeat them. So, I would say there is nothing to change about what I did in the house.
What’s your relationship with fellow housemate, Tamar?
You can go on Facebook, Instagram or ask any model in South Africa, they will tell you that there are a lot of professional models from Nigeria, we see ourselves as siblings, and we have been relating like that for years. I have been in South Africa since 2008, Tamar cooks for us and treats all of us like brothers and sisters. So I will say Tamar is not my mum’s daughter, but she is like my sister and has proven it, and I have proved to be her brother too. I have a woman who has a son for me and she is in my house right now, and she has no problem with it. And right now, I have decided to make her my manager because she is someone who can handle someone like me.
With your Yoruba roots, do you plan to settle down with the Yoruba version of Nollywood?
I am a Yoruba man, I can speak the language anywhere and anytime, I am also very comfortable speaking my dialect. One of the movie producers that I have been looking forward to working with is Kunle Afolayan. I fell in love with him when he played the role of Aresejabata in ‘Saworo Ide’. He spoke in fluent Yoruba in the movie and today, he is one of the respected men in the industry. I want to act in movies, in fact I would even act in Hausa if I am taught how to speak the language. But you could also see me acting in Nollywood English movies with Desmond Elliot, Ramsey Nouah and many others, so I’m not limited to Yoruba alone.
What’s your baby’s name
I named him Akintoye
You have been based in South Africa, are you moving back to Nigeria now that the show is over?
Nigeria is my home. Last year, I came to Nigeria and spent four months, I’m trying to relocate to Nigeria. I was the coordinator of the native and vogue fashion show that took place last year. I came back home to hustle and know what I could do to establish myself, but it did not work out. But I’m back home now, and I have a brand and I can beat my chest that my people are ready to welcome me, and for your information, I already have somewhere in Lekki.
When Idris was announced as the winner, what was the first thing that went through your mind?
You see, when we were all in school, we all knew who the best students in the class were, and when someone who is the best student scores 70, we would say, haba, this person should score like 90. Idris himself knows I won, but he only got the money.
And when we got on stage and we were watching the highlights and I saw myself. I was laughing, in fact, everybody was entertained. The way people cheered when they heard my name assured me that I was winning already, so when Idris’s name was mentioned, I was shocked, I thought IK was joking with me.
Like Uti made a return trip to the house back then, are you planning to go back into the house?
Did Uti come as far as I came the first time? No he didn’t. I don’t think Uti got as much love as I got the first time either, I wouldn’t want to go back in there. When I was doing an interview in South Africa, one of the officials tried to mention it, but I said no, I don’t have three months to sacrifice anymore.
Do you think you were cheated?
Well, Yes. But I don’t feel it anymore because people are not allowing me to feel it. It’s more like they are putting oil on a wound and massaging it, so I can’t feel it. But I know that I was cheated.
Though it became regional at some point, when I was in the house, as a Naija smart boy, I could calculate, we were just two from West Africa, from East Africa, there were four or five countries and also from the South, so I could tell the way it would work. At a point, I had the opportunity to get to the internet, I saw a lady who, on a Facebook page commended Lilian’s picture, but she added that she would never vote for West Africa again, so it wasn’t against Nigeria, it was against West Africa.
This started worrying me a lot. Ella of Uganda and Franklin used to plead to East Africa to vote for them, and they would tell me to wait, since West Africa has won before, so I started fighting against it.
I started campaigning during my diary sessions with Big Brother, telling people to vote for facts and not region, I said this at a press conference in Africa that when we are abroad, we say we are all Africans, but when we are in Africa, we start to say we are East Africans or South Africans, we should all be united.
It means people are not loyal to the game, they are just voting for their citizens and not who entertained them the most.
Who cheated you, the South Africans, Eastern Africans who voted based on sentiments, or the organisers of the show.
I would have loved to ignore or escape from your question, but when I say I feel cheated, I have a lot of reasons for this. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to say it diplomatically, but I as well as millions of Africans or Nigerians have a right to their opinions because they are the people who watch the show.
I have a right to express the way I feel, but like I said, I am not sitting on that anymore. My future is bright.
At the last three weeks before the end of the show, you became very emotional, you were always complaining and drinking, why?
I know a lot of people are busy and don’t watch the show from morning till night every day, hence you miss out on some things. So I was saying to the Mozambican housemate who gave me their votes, we had a plan to buy energy drinks and keep till the end of the show, or to give housemates whenever anyone needs it or whenever there was a party.
So at the last week, I just wanted to have fun, it has always been about having fun. A lot of times, these same people who you thought were happy, where were they weeks before the show ended? So, is it that within just a week, people would have changed their impression about me? I told Big Brother that the people who I was with at the house during the last few days were the people against me. Did you see that they urinated in my bottle of drink? How can I be happy with people like that? At a point, I just kept to myself and sat down in one corner because I did not want to disgrace my own country. So I regret nothing.
Big brother used to say something, if you are not in the house, you cannot understand how it feels. People were seeing psychologists, but I didn’t see any. Big Brother asked me if the last week in the house could jeopardise my winning the mega price and that’s why you are watching yourself, and I said to him, I was sorry if I was being selfish by protecting my image and chances of winning, but I want him to know that my best interest was entertaining Africa all the time, so I will go out there and play with everybody, but if they frustrate me or try to start a fight, I would want Africa to agree with me that it wasn’t my fault. Immediately I got out of the house, I implored them to all come together, let’s joke together and be united.
Denrele introduced Karen and Beverly to the show, who introduced you to the show
I don’t understand your question.
So Uti didn’t influence your coming to the show?
No he didn’t, I came to Nigeria for the audition.
What motivated you to go into the show?
The first Big Brother audition I went for was in 2009 and I have been trying my luck since then.
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