Every day there’s a new opportunity to learn more about your favorite celebrities.Unknown to many, celebrated actress and thespian, Joke Silva popularly called Mummy Jay is an adopted child.
The 56 year old actress was adopted by the late Chief E.A Silva, a respectable lawyer, and his wife late Dr Abimbola Silva, a pioneering female doctor who died in July 2015.
The revered actress made this known at the recent first annual conference of Heritage Adoption Support and Advocacy Group (HASAAG).
Joke Silva recounted her experience at the event which had the wife of the Vice President, Mrs Dolapo Osinbajo in attendance
According to her: I remembered going out with my cousin and we met a big cousin .She introduced me as ‘my cousin’s daughter and this is Dr Silva’s daughter.’ Then, the older cousin was like, ‘Dr. Silva ke? Se Doctor Silva bimo ni? (meaning does Dr. Silva have a child?) . I was so confused and when I got home I told my mum, ‘I met this lady that says you never had a child.’ My mum froze and she said, ‘Don’t mind them, they are used to rubbish talk.’
But I got to know years later when I wanted to travel and was looking for my passport where my mum kept it. Since she was not around, I opened the box in her absence and I saw my adoption papers. I never discussed it with my mum because I felt it was something that would hurt her that was why, it was kept secret from me”.
Speaking further, she shared how she told her husband she is an adopted child.
Hear her: “Several years later, I brought home the one I wanted to marry and my mum asked my husband, if he knew I was adopted and he answered in affirmation that I had already told him.
Many years later, there was another memory of a very nasty member of our family. My mummy always very supportive of her relatives sat on our balcony and said my aunty would never be supportive of her because in the Yoruba language, ‘won o kuku bimo’ (she never supported her because she didn’t have a child of her own.)
When I heard about it I did what Pastor Rapu called the unchristian thing. (May God forgive me. I dealt with her, till today, she never believed what I did that day to her, but I dealt with her by being so cold towards her. She would never forget it.
She also revealed how she told her children she is an adopted child
“I then realized that I needed to tell my children about my adoption. I don’t want anybody to tell them in a way it wouldn’t be supportive. I called my children and I told them the ABC of my adoption story. They now told me that grandma had already told them. It was then I learn that somebody in my son’s school had told him about his mum being adopted. He told grandma and grandma told him everything. Little wonder, my mum and Soji, my son were very close. Till she died, my mum my son remained inseparable”.
A movie producer once grabbed my boobs- Omalicha Elom