Real Housewives of Lagos 3: I Have Settled My Beef With Laura Ikeji – Carolyna Hutchings
Carolyna Hutchings is back in Season 3 of the Real Housewives of Lagos, a TV series screening on DSTV. Hutchings was part of Season 1, but opted out in season 2. She explains more in this interview with SAMUEL ONYEKWERE, why she was not part of the second season. Enjoy the interview.
This is the third season but your second appearance. What should we expect?
I am a very realistic person. I am not who I am not, you will always see the different expressions of Carolyna as a human being, entrepreneur, mother, humanitarian and business woman. I think I am a lot more open in season 3. In season 1,
unfortunately when I came in I just wanted to know the women but I was met with so much that I had to deal with, which I will not want to go into details. It didn’t give me the opportunity to showcase myself the way I would have loved to rather, I was always on the offensive side. I had to keep defending myself and protecting my reputation, my family and my children’s reputation.
In this season 3, I have been able to find my space and I am just Carolyna. I have always been real; you will see my vulnerable moments as a divorced woman, as a mother and as business woman.
I know its a reality show, how much of it is real or are you people just giving us what you want us to see and entertain us?
For me, based on my experiences and everything I have been through I have a lot of contents to give. A lot of reality to give not just to impress the audience but to reach out to those that looks up to me. I am as real as I can be because I was not giving any script. I came with my A -game and every single day I am who I am thats why I said you are going to see my vulnerable side.
There are moments you applaud me or scold me. I was not given any script for this production. I am not speaking for myself, I am certainly sure that the other ladies were not given scripts as well. Its a personal story, this is real as it gets. No scripts.
We missed you in Season 2. Did you choose not to be part of Season 2?
I didn’t come back for season 2 by choice. In season 1, being an actress and a film producer is different from being part of a reality TV show. Now you get to meet the women for the first time on the show not before the show. I really didn’t know what I was doing there, I was sure of myself but the first time is more of the formation time when you are getting to know their character threat, believes and patterns and you are just trying to find your bearing. For me, I just felt overwhelmed because there was a lot of misconception. Its like I kept defending my family and I felt that the narrative was about getting words out of me, my ex-husband and my marriage which should not be anybody’s business unless I want to give out the information to the public.
There was disloyalty and I am such a trusting and kind person though I can also be so naïve when it comes to friendship because I feel the sky is big enough for everyone to succeed. I am a strong advocate for women empowerment which I project a lot in my NGO, Hopeville foundation.
I decided to take a step back because I felt like I was the black sheep and all the false accusations and narratives were pointed at me. My grandmother use to say if everybody feels you are the problem leave the space, the major problem will come out if you know you are innocent and that was exactly what I did. I decided to take a step back in season 2 because I believe when I am no longer in the picture every single thing will come out the way its meant to be and that’s what happened.
When I saw that the truth has come out, I gave it another chance but know that I am not perfect. I have my flaws but I will never go out of my way to bring another woman down.
You are going to see Laura Ikeji again, how do you think its going to pan out, do you have the shock absorber?
They shot that part already episode 2, where I apologized to her, I will go back to what happened in season 1. I was brought up to acknowledge mistakes. When I am wrong I must acknowledge it and learn from my mistakes. In season 1, I really didn’t have any problem with Laura, I didn’t think of her sister who is also a blogger at all. I came to the show to meet new women, to see how I can collaborate with some in business, learn from their life experience and probably leave some as acquaintances depending on their behaviors towards me but unfortunately when Laura saw me, she was already on the defensive.
She was the first person to bring up her sister on the show and when she did, I was the first person she attacked and I felt like I was treated badly and Laura’s attitude towards me kept going on that scène. Laura and I had misunderstanding and that was two months later.
Imagine having to endure these excesses for two months, talking about things that didn’t happen in my marriage that’s defamation of character from Laura.
When I watched season 2, one of the things that drew me to Laura was when she was abused while pregnant. No matter how much I dislike someone’s character, I keep aside any issue when I see something bad being done to the person and show him/her support.
What they did to Laura in season 2 was uncalled for especially for a pregnant woman. I have three children and I know what its because our hormones are not always stable. The best any pregnant women needs is support, understanding at every point in time. I did not like how she was treated regardless of how she treated me in season 1.
When I decided to come back in season 3, I told myself I have to take responsibility for what I said to Laura. I don’t move like everyone, the fact that I apologized does not mean I need an immediate response from Laura. This decision is because of how I was raised, my faith in Christ, believe and the fact that I support women a lot and I believe that women as one unified entity, we tend to be more successful. I will always forgive you before you offend me. My major move for season 3 is that the first day I come when I see Laura; I will take responsibility for what I said to her in episode 1 and I apologized and that was it.
Is it the reason you try to make peace with Tiannah?
Yes. When we were shooting season 1, I remember Tiannah calling me aside when we went to the beach for Iyabo Ojo’s event. She called me aside and said they found a tumor in her head and she said, ‘don’t tell anyone. I held on that information praying in my heart that it will not result in anything negative or life threatening because she still has young kids around. I know how much Tiannah has done for herself and who she is today, regardless of our differences.
My major focus was, this woman is going through a lot regardless of our differences and I will stand by her. Unfortunately the season ended very badly. When I saw Toyin with all the gadgets on her and the way she was going through so much, I just said what if something happen? When will I see her again to settle our differences? I thank God for the grace to make peace with her in as much as she is fine. I am always the first to apologize and I decided to reach out to her. When she lost her baby, I reached out to her via her DM but she did not see it and that was before her ailment.
When are you going back to acting?
I just finished producing a movie My Fairytale Wedding which showed on Showmax and I was one of the executive producers. Myself, Chichi and Ini Edo and a few other producers. Its an amazing series. I am one of the lead characters, myself, ini Edo and Lilian Esoro. i just finished that though it stopped airing last year, fantastic series. I am still an actress. I did a movie with Emeka Enyiocha and Sir Ejike Asiegbu. I played a doctor in Merry Men; even though it was a cameo. I am still an actress and I have not left my first call in entertainment, I have produced three award winning movies as well.
Tell us a bit about your Hopeville foundation
Its a foundation that’s very dear to my heart and it was not formed on a platform of a celebrity having a foundation. I am humanitarian and I was raised by a humanitarian. My grandmother was a teacher. My mother was the only child and so my grandmother struggled with child bearing. Then partially as a mixed race, I faced a lot of abuses and rejection etc. I also grew up in a home where my grandmother will bring in others because she didn’t believe in people from her state being maids because they have stereotyped them as one.
She will bring in a lot of them from Akwa Ibom and send them to school not just secondary or university but technical schools as well. No girl that came into my grandmother’s home that didn’t graduate from institution, a fashion designer, computer science literate or another vocation. She did this with her teachers salary which wasn’t stable in Lagos at some point. I grew up in a very loving, caring and accommodating home where everything we had, we shared because we were content with what we had and no matter what we had, we believed in giving to others from church.
I grew up in a disciplined Christian home where we see sleep five days in the church, evangelism and all that. It was really a strong Christian home and I also had aunties that had child bearing issues and they had BP and all that. When I created this foundation; my first love was to help women that are going through child bearing difficulties from fibroid to cervical cancer, young girls that have been raped and molested including boys because we tend to focus more on the women and forget that young boys are going through a lot including trauma, abuses and others. We also focus on children with birth defects.
I founded Hopeville foundation in 2006 but it was officially registered in 2015 and since 2006, I have solely funded the foundation. We have had successful mammogram test, IVF -two families successfully had their babies, the late Dr Newton was in charge. I have also sponsored two successful co-joined twins surgery, if you remember the Ayeni twins where I used my Instagram page to create attention about them and with the help of one of the wives of the governors; those children were flown abroad for proper surgery. By now, they should be up to five or six years old.
There was another co – joined twin in Kano Amina, which I assisted also. We also sponsored a lot of SMEs. Under Hopeville foundation, we have nine partially adopted children because their mothers are mentally ill due to bad marriages. My grandmother adopted three children. One is in the university, the other one about to enter the university and the last one has autism. We are surrounded by beautiful people and I am happy that Hopeville Foundation has done quite a lot.
Last year we did feed Lagos where we fed over 2000 people. The last reach out we did was a 12 year-old boy that we helped two days before Christmas, that’s Juwon. We helped to get him hearing aids for both ears and he is going through speech therapy. His mother also had child bearing difficulties and we hope to assist her the best way we can. We have a long list of things that we have done in the foundation since 2006 but now, we are planning a proper launch of the foundation so that other people can come in and assist us in every way possible because I cannot do it alone anymore.
You are an enterprising young woman with her hands in real estate, agric, oil and gas and interior decoration. Whose character treat among your parents did you pick this enterprising attribute from?
My dad is Julian David Hollinwarth Hutchings; he was a rugby player in the champions league in Scotland, a whiskey connoisseur-those who have deep knowledge and appreciation of whiskey. My mum was a fashion designer, a well known model and beauty queen in Akwa ibom. Unfortunately, I didnt take the treat from my parents but my grandmother. She was tenacious, ambitious, and academically inclined woman. She just liked to learn and she encouraged everyone around her to learn and to work hard for whatever they want in life.
She will always tell me that I am beautiful but I should remember that beauty without brains is empty vessel. I watched a woman who did not have much, give so much because she worked hard to add value to her home and everyone around her. I took this attribute from my grandmother and I will always acknowledge her for that.
From 2006 -2010-2017, you were not consistent in your movie career. What happened?
The movie ‘Mass Destruction’, I won the best actress 2007. I won the award in 2006 and the movie was shot by the late director Obi Madubuogu. After that I got married and became pregnant. I was a very young girl and I am a very family oriented person. I was raised in a family, so raising your children is paramount to us and I love children. I had my experience in acting before then and I realized that acting takes away a lot of your time. If you really want to dedicate yourself to acting, you have to choose between family and acting. Did I miss acting while I was away? Yes I did.
In 2015, while married, I shot ‘In The Cupboard’ with Desmond Elliot, I was a co producer. I really did not leave the industry and in 2015, I shot Stalker, I was an executive producer, I acted alongside Moses Iwang and its on Amazon.
When I left my marriage, I went into oil and gas business. Apart from my saloon, I have always loved oil and gas and I got a full time job in the industry because I wanted to have the experience of how to run an oil and gas job for at least four years before I left. While married, I was joggling between movies and interior design which I started in 2012 and my first real estate construction was in 2019.
I have not done agriculture because I was supposed to have a land in Nasarawa state, not until I took a flight and one of the engines went off and I said the place was too far from me.
My main focus is entertainment, real estate and oil and gas. When I left oil and gas, I continued my interior designing and my construction business where I was working for clients, trying to build my brand again because it took a while to find my footing in the other businesses after being in the oil and gas business. To start off that was during the Covid period and there was a lot of uncertainty.
However, in 2022, I was called to do the Real Housewives of Lagos, I was joggling that with my interior designing business and my construction and my own oil and gas company at the same time including my foundation.
How easy was it for you to make peace with Laura Ikeji in the new season?
It was a mixed feeling because I know that I deserve an apology not for myself but my daughter as well because I never mentioned her sisters name. It was Laura that kept mentioning the name and I had to start talking about my innocent daughter and Laura did not show any empathy.
There were a lot of things she was saying two months before we had the misunderstanding and I had made up my mind that no matter what happens; I will take responsibility for whatever happen. I know people will say should you be the one to apologize. That’s why I am Carolyna; I will only do things that are right. I felt that I said something bad to Laura and I was going to take responsibly for that.
What influenced your decision to feature your daughter on the show knowing how protective you are about her?
I just felt like my scenes will be a bit dry. I am an extreme introvert and extremely protective of my family. Apart from me and my younger brother; who is trying to break into the music industry, I am literally the loudest. Everyone is so quiet and reserved. I just felt you should see the other side of me as a mother and that’s the only scene you saw her. I don’t want my children to be in the media until they are ready and it will be their decision.
Why did you return to the show?
When I left a lot of people said don’t go back but I received a lot of DM’s from women and men telling me that I gave them a lot of courage and taught them to stand for themselves. After I settled with Toyin Lawani, she called me for a meeting and she said, Carolyna, you are one person that’s conscious of what people say about you forgetting that you are such an amazing woman and you have a lot of people looking at you. ‘Do not deem your light for anyone.
There are lots of people that want to associate with you. Don’t hide in the shadows, come out and shine and that was what I did’. Coming back is not for the fame but because there are quite a lot for me to showcase.
Which of the old cast member did you miss?
I do miss all of them. Everyone had a strong personality, is either you up your game or go home and I missed that regardless of the drama. Toyin was doing her fashion, Iyabo an amazing producer, Chioma an amazing fashion designer with her hair line, Laura an amazing influencer, I and Mariam. Everyone came with their A- game.
They had their character treats and behavioral patterns too and I learnt from everyone the good, the bad and the ugly. I wish the story could continue but I am happy we have Dabota, Deola and Sophia on board. Its a beautiful group; you are able to correct some notions, come out of your shelve and make new friends. I wish everyone can come together once again.
