By Zainab Ibrahim
Nigerian Afrobeats luminary Tiwa Savage has finally opened up in depth about a painful chapter that changed her life and reshaped how she sees intimacy, privacy, and public perception. The saga of the 2021 leaked tape which for years hovered as a storm cloud over her reputation has been reframed by the star herself as not a scandal born from accident, but a deeply hurtful betrayal.
During a recent interview on The Breakfast Club, Tiwa Savage described the experience as one of the darkest moments of her life. What people were first told did not tell the full story. At the time, her partner claimed that the intimate video was shared by mistake. As she later discovered, however, it was released as part of a bet with his friends.
She spoke about how she originally tried to find light in the situation, using humour and pouring emotion into her music in an attempt to move past the hurt. But looking back, she admits she didn’t truly process the pain. She says she felt like a victim in a situation thrown into public scrutiny without her consent.
The public response, she notes, was harsher than the leak itself. Beyond the humiliation, what gnawed at her was how people dragged her role as a mother into the fray questioning her character, saying her young son would someday be disappointed. That, she says, hurt far worse than the tape. Even now, some songs she wrote in the aftermath are too painful to perform or to listen to fully.
Assertions that she orchestrated the leak as a publicity stunt, claims she rejects emphatically were another layer of the burden she carried. She recalls people saying she was no longer “relevant,” that the leak must have been PR. To such speculation she responded with a quiet defiance: if she had wanted attention, she’d have managed more, from lighting to production.
The ordeal took a toll on her mental health. Legal attempts to address the incident were ultimately halted not from lack of effort, but because the emotional cost was overwhelming. Savage said she simply wanted to move forward, to heal. Therapy played a role. Her family, especially her mother, provided grounding. Her mother’s words “don’t listen to them … I’m just happy that you’re enjoying yourself” became a reframing moment.
One of the most striking changes in her life since then is her perspective on intimacy and how she allows herself to connect. She told the interviewers she has been celibate for about three years, choosing relationships that feel safe, meaningful, and grounded. The trauma reshaped not just how she interacts with the public, but how she protects her private life.
Looking at the event now, Tiwa Savage’s account urges audiences to recognize the human cost behind sensational rumours. It highlights how quickly public perception can turn, how pain is often overshadowed by gossip, and how recovery takes both time and intention. Her story is no longer just about what was leaked it’s about agency: reclaiming her narrative, defining her vulnerability on her own terms, and reminding that worth is not measured by how loudly one can pronounce one’s innocence, but how deeply one can heal.
