The controversy about celebrities’ money, particularly women in the entertainment industry, has raged for years and shows no signs of abating. 

When people learn that a celebrity, particularly an actress, has obtained anything — a new house, a new car, etc. – the general belief is that she must have done something illegal to obtain it.

Now Linda Osifo, an actress who has endured her own share of such speculation from the public sat down in an interview with star interviewer Ebuka Obi-Uchendu on an episode of Rubbin’ Minds to discuss about this issue amongst other things. During the 20-minute long interview session, Ebuka asked Linda the burning question a lot of people have asked in times past: Why do the women in Nollywood seem to make more money than the men?

Linda’s answer was simple, honest, and to a lot of people very surprising either because it wasn’t something they expected to hear or it was something they’d never thought about before. This is what she said.

Linda Osifo

During the interview, Ebuka asked:

“Why does it seem like the women seem to do better than the men? Men and women start at the same time, suddenly the woman owns a house, has cars while the guys are still at a certain level yet they get paid the same. Sometimes they even get paid more. How do you handle that and what is that about?”

To which Linda responded:

Now I’m going to give you a simple example. As a man compared to a woman, I have more options to get more jobs than you. I can advertise a hair – I don’t think you can definitely do that. I can advertise more shoes. The clothes that I’ll be able to advertise will be so much more because the ratio of men and women it’s about 1 to 3? So we have more women population than anything. So when a woman gets more jobs that will create more avenues for her, it can seem a bit not so balanced in terms of our industry. I’ll use myself as an example. I’ve become a brand ambassador for a skincare brand and that’s an industry where most men are not able to conquer. Why? Because who are the customers? I don’t think you’re going to be buying creams that will soothe your skin, it’s the women that will buy it for you if I’m right. So that’s an example there. That’s how I see it.

Citing an example to ask his next question, Ebuka said:

“When you bought a house a couple of months ago, there were some ‘interesting’ comments. When you see those kinds of comments, how do you react to them if you do?”

The photo Ebuka was referring to

Linda responded:

The picture I posted was of my family house. Well, I’ve come to understand the sort of society I’m in. Having both outside world (she grew up in Canada) and the world here, I’ve seen that it’s a different world here. We have this mindset that most women can’t succeed so in my case, I rejoice for my family blessing but I got to see that people feel that women themselves can’t do this. That’s a problem. That’s a big problem because I may not have been able to achieve that myself but there are many women that are doing such alone. Many.

Not the answer many people were expecting but when you think about it, it really does make sense. Women simply have more products to advertise than men, I don’t know why I never thought about that. Of course the female celebrities will be getting booked for more things. This really makes sense to me. Does it make sense to you? Let me know in my Facebook comments if it makes sense to you or if you think there’s more to it.