Yetunde Wunmi, born Taiwo Akinwande, has peeled back the layers of her life in a raw and emotional account of the sacrifices she has endured during her nearly four-decade-long career in theatre—a career that has been marked by both triumph and tragedy.
Yetunde Wunmi peeled away all pretense in an emotional and frank interview, revealing the true extent of her anguish.
She described the tragic demise of her marriage, a grief that rocked her personal life to its core.
The pain of losing her newborn, however, is even worse than that; she said it was so intense that it felt like a piece of her soul had been ripped out.
In a deeply reflective interview with BBC Yorùbá, the 64-year-old actress revealed the painful personal costs she has paid to pursue her passion, offering a glimpse into the emotional toll that her dedication to the craft has taken on her life.
She took listeners back to 1982, where her journey on the stage began under the guidance of Sunday Akinola (Feyi Kogbon), a time when she was full of hope and ambition, never imagining the hardships that lay ahead.
The spark of her passion for acting, according to her, was ignited after meeting the late Adeyemi Afolayan, a legendary filmmaker whose influence set her on a path that would forever change her life
Yetunde Wunmi spoke with heartbreaking candor about how her marriage crumbled under the weight of her devotion to the stage, leaving her to navigate a life where her love for the craft came at the expense of the love she once shared with her partner.
In one of the most harrowing revelations of her career, Wunmi recounted an incident that still haunts her to this day—an incident that forever changed her as a woman and as a mother.
With a voice trembling from the memories, she spoke of a time when her baby, just one month old and gravely ill, was carried with her to a performance in Ilorin, Kwara State. Torn between her duty as an actress and her instincts as a mother, she made the painful decision to go on stage despite her child’s fragile state.
That night, she performed, hoping the worst would not come to pass. But fate, cruel and merciless, had other plans.
At just one year and ten days old, her child was taken from her—snatched away by the cold hands of death.
CATCH HER PAINFUL ORDEAL IN CLIP BELOW