Musician Avril has lifted the lid on controversial 2012 pictures, which showed her in a compromising situation with a fellow woman.
In one of the pictures, Avril was captured in bed with another woman, who, just like the singer, was also naked. In another picture, the unidentified woman can be seen holding Avril’s breasts.
And even after repeatedly denying claims of being a lesbian, the “Hello Baby” hit-maker has now come out to share a new narrative – that the woman, who resembles her in the pictures, wasn’t her.
Speaking on K24’s “Talk Central” show hosted by Kalekye Mumo on Thursday, October 18, Avril said: “They say you haven’t made it until someone calls you the ‘L’ (lesbian) word. That is what Kanye [West] said, so whatever! I have never been an experimental type; I have never been experimental with my sexuality. I am a straight chiq; I am a straight shooter.”
The musician claims that somebody was out to engineer her ejection from Ogopa DJs by sharing those pictures.
“I came to find out later that there were some people who wanted me to be dropped from Ogopa DJs [recording label]. They don’t know that I know because somebody from their team later came and told me: ‘By the way, this is what happened… bla bla bla…’ One of the women in that picture wasn’t even me, man!” said Avril.
-BABY DADDY TO REMAIN UNKNOWN-
And in the K24 interview – just like in many others she had given before –, Avril refused to reveal her baby’s father, only ruling out the speculation that her ex-fiance, Munga, is her baby daddy.
“My engagement broke 2 years ago, and exactly 2 years later, I became pregnant. So, the baby’s father cannot be my ex-fiance,” said Avril.
“The person, who is in the picture right now, shall remain unnamed because I learnt from my past… This thing of anikaing people; your spouse on the press does not work out well. That is one of the reasons why I have chosen to keep my baby out of the limelight. I don’t want him to live to that image of always being out there, and that is why his name is just ‘M’. No one would ever know his name until he gets to school.”
Host Kalekye Mumo pressed Avril to share more details about her son’s father.
“Is this person in your life, or in your baby’s life – are you in a relationship?”asked Ms Mumo.
“He is in both of our lives; he has to be at the end of the day. We have a close friendship, we have a close relationship; we have to raise this boy. At the end of the day, they say raising a boy is way harder than raising a girl. Let us just say I am raising a beautiful boy [sic] with an amazing man, who has an amazing heart and an amazing work ethic, and has an amazing love for his son and myself. That’s it,” replied Avril.
“I have chosen to live my life as private as possible, and I am happy,” added the musician.
The “Chokoza” star further declined to deny or confirm whether video director J. Blessing is her son’s father.
“What I would say about J. Blessing is that he is a person I have worked with in the past three years. I totally respect him as a person; I respect him as a director; I respect him as being part of the creative team of brand Avril. And I don’t want to be put in a situation where his name is always dragged into mine, and mine dragged into his when it comes to interviews and such and such,” said Avril.
“I feel that is the reason why we [J. Blessing and I] haven’t talked about all these speculations and rumours. We both have these journeys involving self-realisation, self-actualisation [that we are pursuing], and we just want people to respect the fact that we are both in our journeys,” she said.
The artiste also refuted popular belief that she hid news about her pregnancy.
“I did not hide my pregnancy; I was performing, I was on stage… I just did not talk about it. People mistake someone not talking about something to be tantamount to hiding something; I did not hide anything; I was shopping, I was in the supermarket… I mean, just because I was pregnant does not mean that I was required to wear tight clothes and show off my belly, you know… I just lived my life. I wanted this [pregnancy] for the longest time in my life; actually from the time I was 27 years old; I am currently 32,” said Avril.
Avril gave birth in April this year.