Veteran Nollywood actress Eucharia Anunobi has opened up about the difficult relationship she had with her father while pursuing education and a career in entertainment.
Speaking in a podcast interview, Anunobi said her father strongly opposed her education and ambitions because he believed educating a girl child was unnecessary since she would eventually marry and take another name.
According to her, he stopped supporting her education despite being financially comfortable and even cut ties with her after she refused to follow the career path he wanted.
She said modeling became the means through which she financed her education, explaining that it sustained and paid for her schooling.
Anunobi also recalled that after she refused to fill out employment forms her father wanted her to submit for an office job, he locked her in her room for six months, passing the forms to her under the door and insisting she complete them.
Despite the pressure, she refused, saying she did not want to work in an office.
She further revealed that her father informally disowned her and strongly disapproved of her acting career, forcing her to sneak out of the house and sometimes jump the fence to attend auditions.
According to her, the turning point came after she won her first award in London for the film Glamour Girls.
When she returned home and presented the award to her father, he asked her to kneel down, placed sand in her hand and finally blessed her.
“He said, as they can’t count the sand, they will never be able to measure your glory,” she recalled, adding that it was the first time her father hugged and blessed her after years of disagreement.