“I was depressed, lost business deals, became paranoid” – Toke Makinwa’s Ex, Maje Ayida, opens up on life after their scandalous divorce

Fitness coach and ex-husband of media personality Toke Makinwa, Maje Ayida, has revealed how their messy divorce pushed him into depression and nearly ruined his life and career.

In a recent testimony at a UK church that’s now trending online, Maje said the public fallout from the crashed marriage left him ashamed, paranoid, jobless, and totally withdrawn from society.

“I went through a divorce that was very publicised… and that left me feeling very alone,” he said. “I was really ashamed of my situation… I went into hiding.”

According to him, the depression lasted for a whole year and made him lose business deals, stop going to work, and even struggle with getting out of bed.

“I lost the essence to even get up in the morning… what am I getting up for? Everyone already feels a certain way about me,” he confessed.

He said things got so bad that he became paranoid, believing everyone was talking about him whenever he stepped out, which only made him retreat further into isolation.

“What’s sleep? I didn’t even know what that was. I had insomnia,” Maje shared. “The noise around me even though I was in silence was insane.”

But his turning point came when he made a bold decision to face his reality. After doing research on how to escape that dark place, he said the biggest solution he found was accountability.

“I took the blame on myself… it made me feel worse at first but eventually helped me take practical steps.”

Maje and Toke tied the knot in 2014, but the marriage hit the rocks just two years later amid shocking cheating scandals.

In 2017, Maje even dragged Toke to court, suing her for ₦100 million over her tell-all memoir “On Becoming”, which he claimed defamed his character.

By November 2020, a Lagos High Court ruled in his favour, ordering that Toke and her publishers pay ₦500,000 each to a charity and stop printing the book with the defamatory parts.