Nigerian film star and producer, Jim Iyke, has revealed that he planned the fight with Uche Maduagwu, the self-acclaimed Nollywood actor to create awareness for his 2021 movie titled ‘Bad Comments’.
He also revealed that he paid Maduagwu to help him execute the plans.
In August 2021, Jim Iyke staged a fight with Maduagwu at an undisclosed location in Lagos over his comments on social media, questioning Iyke’s source of wealth. A situation that caused an uproar online.
But Jim Iyke during an interview with Jideonwo disclosed that he organized the crisis and also paid Maduagwu to play along.
The 45-year-old movie star said it was well deliberate, scripted, and executed for the movie he was trying to promote at that time.
According to him, he said he put up with the measure as a strategy to publicize the movie after spending over N20 million without getting the desired result.
He went forth to say that the initiative was also to demonstrate that he is capable of pulling any prank.
In his words, he said
“It was orchestrated, I can say it now. I’ve given you two scripts. Do I look like the kind of person that just before the introduction of one of the most important works in my entire career would go and jeopardize it with that? No, I’m too strategic.”
“I called the man (Maduagwu), we had an understanding, I paid very well for it, rolled out the script, called Moses in, we shot it and we’re about to release the ending of it. I’m not stupid. I will never make that kind of mistake.”
“We buried over N20m in the promotion of that film and people were still viewing it with a certain degree of cynicism. Immediately there was a scandal, it caught fire.”
“I wanted to tell them to paint the picture of what it was like in the social media ecosystem. I can orchestrate anything and you will perceive it. It’s about perception.”
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