For actress and scriptwriter, Elvina Ibru, being the child of an affluent and prominent family has not made her life a bed of roses as many may assume.
Elvina Ibru, 47-year-old entertainer said in a bid to create a niche for herself, she had to work very hard to hone her acting skills, despite being the daughter of the late billionaire businessman, Olorogun Michael Ibru.
Elvina, who also spoke about her weight loss, and how her father’s name has affected her career, opened up in a chat with Saturday Beats.
She said, “Being the daughter of Michael Ibru didn’t open doors for my acting career. As a matter of fact, it’s the complete opposite. Just recently, a friend told me that my name was submitted to a director for a television series but the director kicked against it saying ‘we can’t afford this one’.
“People think I’m acting because it’s a hobby. They don’t think that I work for a living. They also think that huge bags of money are delivered to my doorstep every week.
“It’s funny that people have illusions about me without getting to know me. Honestly, I can’t tell you that my surname has helped me at all in my acting career. When I approach people to sponsor a film that I want to produce, they laugh and ask why an Ibru should come to them for help.
“However, that does not make me less proud of my name. I’m very proud that I’m an Ibru.
“If my dad had supported my acting career, I would have ended up in Hollywood. The important message is that people should not think that having a wealthy father makes one’s career easy. It is not easy for anybody. One has to be talented and hard-working. I know that one day people would start seeing that this is what I’m good at.”
And on why women who sometimes feel insecure about their bodies, she asserted, “just like everything else, it’s what society dictates that is beautiful. And I think things rotate according to what we are looking at and what people are saying. When I was growing up, my mother, who was born in Calabar, (Cross River State) told me that slim women were very conscious of their bodies because men of the Efik tribe liked big women. Being big represented good health and fertility.
“However, we are a society that likes to be fed with what people think is good and bad. Once a magazine cover says ‘yellow’ girls are fine or curvy girls are sexy, that becomes the trend and everybody starts tilting in that direction.
“That’s where body-shaming starts from. But the truth is that God made every individual differently and there is beauty in everybody.
“I lost weight because of my health, not for my looks. I was getting jobs as a big person but I was turning them down because physically, I could not keep up. If I had stayed that way, some scary sickness would have developed. The weight was making me unable to do simple things.