Fitness entrepreneur and media personality Maje Ayida has revealed how the public breakdown of his marriage to Toke Makinwa plunged him into a year-long battle with depression, forcing him into isolation and disrupting both his personal and professional life.
Okay.ng reports that Ayida shared his emotional journey during a recent church event in the United Kingdom, where he spoke candidly about the aftermath of the highly publicised divorce that rocked Nigeria’s entertainment scene in 2016.
“I will be honest about the fact that I went through a divorce, which resulted in me being depressed. It was a very publicised divorce,” he admitted.
The fitness expert said the intense public scrutiny and shame surrounding the divorce deeply affected his mental health and led him to withdraw from society.
“I was really ashamed of my situation. Not just for myself; my self-esteem was affected. Legacy is very important to me. I was ashamed of what I felt I had done to my family’s name,” he said. “As a result, I went into hiding. I didn’t want to interact with anyone. I wanted to be alone, stay at home. I stopped going to work. It was very hard.”
Ayida explained how the emotional turmoil affected his ability to function, revealing that he struggled with daily tasks and lost multiple business deals due to his mental state.
“As a man, your work is your identity, and I started to lose work and business deals. So it became a real problem for me,” he stated. “That was when I made a decision—for my own survival—because I was living in hopelessness. It went on for weeks.”
The entrepreneur detailed his experience with insomnia and paranoia, describing how his mind constructed imaginary scenarios that made public outings unbearable.
“I checked out of life for a year to recoup,” he recalled. “I was on the floor. What’s sleep? I didn’t even know what that was. I had insomnia. I was overly suspicious as well… I created a scenario in my own mind that everybody is talking about me.”
That level of anxiety, he said, “would just send me back into my own home.”
Despite the darkness, Ayida said a turning point came when he chose to take accountability, a move that initially worsened his emotional burden but eventually helped him begin a journey toward healing.
“I decided that I didn’t want to stay in this space. I did research on how to deal with it. The top of the list was accountability. I took the blame on myself. It made me feel worse at first until I began to take practical steps,” he said.
Maje Ayida and Toke Makinwa tied the knot in 2014, but the marriage ended in 2016 after allegations of infidelity surfaced. The divorce, widely covered by media outlets and debated across social platforms, became one of the most talked-about celebrity breakups in Nigeria.
