By JACKSON IWUANORUEjacksoniwuanorue@yahoo.co.uk
Once upon a time, she was a super model. As a model, she achieved fame and fulfillment. Her success stretched from fashion runways to billboards. Even today, she still has the grace, the glamour and the gloss of a first-class model - she is still drop-down gorgeous. Linda Ikeji, however, has since moved on. For her, modeling has become history, “a thing of yesterday”.
She opened new vistas as an entrepreneur and an author. But those are not the big chapters in her life. “I am now a blogger 100 percent,” she tells any listening ears. In her new endeavour, the author of It Takes You is proving her mettle. Her self-titled blog, an online Mecca visited by countless Nigerians on a daily basis (and a leading source for some of the big stories that trended heavily in 2011) finished the year 2011 among the top 20 popular blogs in Nigeria. From cause célèbre to celebrity gist, her blog is a veritable source.
In this encounter, the Imo-born model-turned-blogger talks about the dynamics of running a blog. The acclaimed Nigeria’s Queen of Blog also muses about finding love: “I am not looking for a man; I am looking for love,” she quips. Linda is amiable, but she talks with an engaging gravitas. She is also blunt.
How is life as a blogger?
It’s nice. I am enjoying it.
When and how did you start blogging?
I started in 2006. A friend of mine called me, she said “Linda I read about you on a website.” She emailed the link to me. I looked up the website and it was Bellanaija. I read the story and the comments. I saw other things and I enjoyed it. From that day, I started going to that blog everyday for about six months. One day I said to myself: “I want to do this too. I want to own a blog too.” So I started my blog in December 2006.
How do you get contents for your blog?
That is the biggest challenge of owning a blog – looking for contents, especially when you have thousands of people checking your blog on a daily basis, looking for information. One of the things I do is that I keep my ears to the ground; I go on twitter, I talk to celebrities; but more importantly I get exclusive stories – people send them to me. In fact I have some stories I cannot upload on my blog. Because people know me, I don’t want somebody to come and pick me up for anything. Celebrities’ friends – friends of celebrities - offer me stories about their friends but most of them I don’t upload them on my blog. If I were anonymous, maybe I wouldn’t bother. But I am well-known. So I look at the materials critically. I also scour through magazines too. So I get my stories from different sources.
That means most of the time you are busy on the internet?
Yes, I am busy. In a day I spend about 10 hours on the internet. Sometimes too, I can spend just about one hour; it depends on how many stories I have on my hand. Sometimes I just do four hours and I am done for the day. But I enjoy it. And I feel like I have the best job in the world. Because I have free time to myself, I can choose to go and watch movies at the cinemas, come back and continue blogging. At the moment I am doing it all alone but I am contemplating employing other hands to work for me.
You said it is not every material that come that you upload. Is that a way of avoiding controversy?
Not that I don’t want controversy; controversy is good if you have the time. Controversy is not bad. I just don’t want to get into a scenario where people will start gunning for me, looking for me to pick me up or to do something bad to me. That is what I am avoiding. But if it is controversial and I have evidence that it is true, why not? When people send me stories, I don’t know if it is true or false; they just tell me this happened. How do I verify? If you send me pictures, and there are people to back up the story, I will put it on my blog. But if you send me a story and there is nothing to back it up, I will avoid putting such on my blog.
How do you feel when celebrities allege that you have gone too far by uploading stories about them on your blog?
I don’t put stories on my blog to insult celebrities. Most time it is positive news. My readers are very diverse and so are their comments; it is the comments that are so bad that get the celebrities offended, it’s not me writing bad things about them, however, because they (celebrities) cannot take out their anger on the anonymous writers, they pick on me instead, feeling that I gave the anonymous writers the platform to insult them, hence they transfer the aggression to me. Its fine by me anyway; there is no way you will run a blog and you will not have to deal with such issues. That’s why sometimes when people insult me on my blog, I upload the comments too.
Has anyone ever called you with regard to what you put on your blog with a demand that you take it down?
Of course. I put up a picture yesterday and somebody called me that it is too brutal. The other day I put up pictures of somebody’s daughter. They didn’t like it so they called me and the woman said: ‘this is my three-year-old daughter you put on your blog, you know all kind of people are on the internet, can you please take it down?” That I understand, because I asked myself: “if I have a three-year-old daughter would I want her picture on the internet?” If I put a picture of a man hugging somebody and he called me that “you know I am married,” blah, blah. That also I understand. But when I put up a good story of something that happened to you and you now call me and tell me to take it down - if you don’t give me a good enough reason, I wouldn’t. Even if you threaten, I would not acknowledge your message.
How do you do gatekeeping on the materials sent to you?
A lot of the materials I get are very negative. For instance, someone recently sent me pictures of a married actor caught in a compromising position with a girl that is not his wife. I asked myself, “If I put up this picture, will it not destroy his marriage?” Two days ago somebody sent me the picture of Before and After of an actress who was alleged to have done a Botox. I looked at the picture and I could detect slight differences but I don’t know for sure if really she had taken shots of Botox. If I had seen her with my very eyes, like I went to the US and I ran into her where she went for the treatment, I will take the picture and I will write the story myself and I will stand by it.
Today you are known for blogging than modeling. What happened to modeling?
I stopped modeling before I started blogging. Some people said “Linda is a failed model.” It’s not true. In my time, I was one of the biggest models in Nigeria. But in Nigeria, even up till today, modeling doesn’t make you a celebrity. It doesn’t make you (super) rich either. During our time, we were top models in Nigeria yet we were not known like Genevieve Nnaji or Ini Edo. Modeling doesn’t make you big. Not in Nigeria. I made money from it and I moved on to other things not because I am tired of modeling but because I want to try my hands on something else. So I started running a modeling agency. I am still in the modeling industry but behind the scene, as model manager, choreographer and what have you. But again I have moved on from that too. Now I don’t do any other thing except blogging; my agency is being run by someone. I am now a blogger 100 percent.
You mean blogging pays all your bills?
100 percent, yes.
Are you insinuating that blogging is more lucrative than modeling?
By far. I don’t even bother myself with modeling anymore. Once upon a time modeling was paying my bills, because I was fortunate, not only was I one of the most sought-after fashion model at that time, I was also well sought-after in terms of billboard, at a time I was one of the faces of MTN. It’s not every time that I have money, but most of the time I have cash to take care of myself.
Today, are you still chasing money?
Yes, I am still chasing money.
What do you think of money?
I think money makes life easy. I have had time in my life when I didn’t have any money and I have time in my life when I have money; life is not about money but money is a big thing because with money you can take care of your problems; you can save the world with money; you can live a good life. Money is good. We are all working because of money. But anything that will destroy somebody else, I won’t do it, not for all the money in the world.
For how long do you plan to be a blogger?
I officially started making money from blogging in 2011. I plan to do it for a long time. If I marry today, my husband goes to work and I will go to my office and I will spend three or four hours blogging and I will be fine. If I am pregnant, I may not go to work, I will be in my house and I will still be blogging. For now I don’t do any other thing except blogging; my modeling agency is being run by someone.
Now that blogging is your major preoccupation, what are your fears?
My fear is about going down in terms of rating. At the moment I am among the top 30 in Nigeria. Instead of going down, I want to be among the top 10. There are so many Nigerian blogs springing up nowadays, I don’t want to slide down in popularity. Up till now I am doing it alone, but it is getting so demanding that I am thinking of hiring extra hands.
How was growing up like?
I was very introverted. I like keeping to myself. That was how I was like. I was and still I am a shy person, only that people don’t know. I quite enjoy growing up.
Were you not bullied?
How could anybody bully me? It is when you have access to me that you can bully me. In secondary school, I moved with a group of girls, about six or seven of us that were friends, I did not have any other friends. I don’t think anybody can bully me because I am the type of person that speaks out; I don’t keep things to myself. If anybody tries to bully me, people will hear of it. I am not like some people who would say “I don’t want to be criticized I don’t want to be stigmatized.” That is bullshit.
But sometimes you care about what the society thinks about you?
I don’t care. If I care, I would be married by now. Like something happened to me now and I would be thinking that if I talk now “what will the society think?” People that are busy running their lives, you think that they have the time to care? When women are raped, they refuse to fight back, they refuse to talk because they don’t want to be stigmatized. My point is: I have one life to live, if anything happens to me, people will hear it; however they want to react to it, is their business.
What are your regrets?
I don’t have any regret. I feel I am living my best life now; life has never been any better because I have more money now (laughs).
Has it ever occurred to you that you will be rich?
Oh yes. I knew all along that one day I will have money; I am not rich, but I have more money now than I used to have. I never imagined that I will get to a point in my life where I will be this independent. I knew that one day, it will happen, I will hit pay dirt but I never thought it was going to come from blogging. I never imagined it.
You are over 30 years old, are you not under pressure from your parents to marry?
Not even from my parents alone. I am under pressure from myself; I am under pressure from friends and everybody generally. But I have always said that until I meet somebody that I feel I can spend the rest of my life with, I am not going to marry. People ask: “Why are you (still) single?” It’s not as if men are not coming.” Yes, men are coming, especially when they know that you have money.
What if you are older than the man-
I don’t have time for younger men.
Why?
You have to be older than me for me to be interested in you.
What if you found love in someone and you later discovered he is younger?
You don’t even have access to me for that love to happen. Some of them don’t even know my background. One of the things that turn me off is when I meet a guy and he started saying: “I read your blog every minute…” If I meet a man and he started by saying he reads my blog, it’s a big turn off. But if I meet a man and he said he has never heard my name, I am like “that is nice”. I like that.
What is your idea of a man?
I am not looking for a man; I am looking for love. There are a lot of men, but I want to see a man that will take my breath away.
What if that person happens to be a young guy?
I am looking for a young guy. But I am not looking for one that is younger than me. As long as he is at least 31, he is okay.
What if you are deceived by his look?
We can’t get to a point where there is love before I found out your age, because the first thing I ask a guy before I go on a date or whatever is: “how old are you?” and then, “are you single?” I just want a good man, a man who is older than me. He doesn’t have to have money as long as I feel something for you. I have had time that I went out with some guys and I couldn’t wait for them to get out of my face. I am easily bored. I’d rather be watching movies or blogging. I don’t know how to pretend. And I’d rather be single than wasting my time with somebody who would not take me as I am.
When you are married how many children do you hope to have?
I hope to have two and then adopt one.
Why do you want to adopt a child?
I want to raise another child that is not mine.
Would you consider going into politics in future?
No. I don’t want to work for anyone; I don’t want my beliefs to be compromised-
Do you mean that in your lifetime, you are not going to work under anybody?
I don’t want to work for anybody, its not going to happen, not even for the government.
When did you develop this philosophy?
Since when I was young. When I was in the university and I saw (young) girls sleeping with men. It was so disgusting to me at that age that I swore I will never tread on that path. The first modeling job I did, I was paid N10, 000 and I felt so good. I was 17 and I was making N10, 000 sometimes even more. When I stopped modeling, I started my own agency.
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