In an interview with Arise TV on Sunday February 1, 2026, Kunle Afolayan, says his colleague Funke Akindele, called him on Saturday night and yelled at him over his recent remarks on film promotion strategies within Nollywood.
“She called, and she said, ‘I know you don’t like me, but don’t mention my name in your interviews,’ she was yelling, and she dropped the phone after that”
“It was weird, and I’m like, where is this coming from. She’s like a sister to me. In Unilag, I would go to her hostel, her sister is also my friend, so I am not sure where this is coming from……I never said anything was wrong with it. For me, it’s draining. I have absolutely nothing against it. I’m just saying what I will not do,”
“If for any reason she feels offended, I’m sorry. But one thing she has done, which I think is totally wrong, and I would never do this kind of a thing, is to use social media rats to come after whoever it is.”
“The honest truth is, it was a forum, it was a film business forum, and we had the cinema operators there, and the cinema operators were asking me, when are you coming back to cinema, and I said, I can’t come to cinema if you cannot guarantee that I will make substantial money,” he said.
“I clearly said to them (young filmmakers), that if you want to adopt a model that I think will work for you now, then follow Funke Akindele’s model.
“There is no competition between us. I don’t just want N1 billion or N2 billion in the cinema that I won’t be able to personally receive N10 million from.
I want to make a film if you can guarantee I don’t have to dance to sell. We need to come up with other strategies. How do we sell without exhausting ourselves? I don’t know how the likes of Funke Akindele and others are doing it. Creating skits every day, changing costumes all the time. I can’t do it.”He said in two separate videos
He acknowledged the actress Funke’s success, adding that she started at a younger age, and then she did Jenifa with minimal budget, rolling resources, and from then, her brand has grown.”
