Omotayo Fashola
Fitness mogul Maje Ayida, once married to Nollywood star Toke Makinwa, has bravely opened up about his battle with depression after their messy divorce played out in the public eye.
He confessed that the overwhelming backlash forced him into isolation, consumed by humiliation and self-doubt.
The wellness guru shared his emotional journey during a recent UK church testimony—a raw, unfiltered moment now circulating widely online.
Ayida described how the year-long depression paralyzed him, costing him work and business ventures, until he embraced radical self-accountability.
His voice heavy with reflection, he admitted, “I won’t sugarcoat it—my divorce wrecked me. The media circus around it made everything worse.
“I felt completely abandoned. The shame was crushing—not just for me, but for my family’s reputation. So I disappeared. No calls, no outings, just me and my four walls.
“Getting out of bed became impossible. Work? Forget it. My drive evaporated. Why bother when the world had already written me off?
“As a man, your career defines you. Losing clients and deals? That’s when reality hit—hard. I was drowning.
“Weeks bled into months of pure despair. For a full year, I checked out of life. The darkness was suffocating. Sleep? A distant memory. Insomnia and paranoia became my new normal.
“Even on rare outings, I’d convince myself strangers were whispering about me. One sideways glance would send me fleeing home.
“The silence in my apartment screamed louder than any crowd. But rock bottom forced a choice: stay broken or fight back.
“I studied recovery strategies. Accountability topped the list. Owning my mistakes gutted me at first—but it was the only way forward.”
Ayida and Makinwa’s 2014 marriage collapsed spectacularly by 2016.
In 2017, he slapped her with a N100 million defamation suit over her tell-all memoir ‘On Becoming,’ which chronicled their toxic union.
Despite legal warnings to remove damaging passages, Makinwa published anyway—prompting Ayida’s courtroom victory in November 2020.
A Lagos High Court ordered N500,000 penalties from both defendants to charities of Ayida’s choice, plus an injunction blocking further distribution of the unredacted book.
Osas Aikhomu
