Iyke had in August 2021 beat Maduagwu up for questioning his source of wealth. The video of the stunt had gone viral at that time.

“Jim Iyke, one of Nollywood’s most popular actors, has revealed that his face-off with fellow actor Uche Maduagwu was orchestrated to promote his movie, Bad Comments.

Iyke had in August 2021 beat Maduagwu up for questioning his source of wealth. The video of the stunt had gone viral at that time.

In an interview with Chude Jideonwo published on Wednesday, Iyke noted that the beating was staged.

“It was orchestrated, I can say it now. I’ve given you two scripts. Do I look like the kind of person that just before the introduction of one of the most important works in my entire career would go and jeopardize it with that? No, I’m too strategic,” Jim Iyke said.

Revealing the reason for pulling such a stunt, he said, “I wanted to tell them to paint the picture of what it was like in the social media ecosystem. I can orchestrate anything and you will perceive it. It’s about perception.”

Iyke also noted that he paid Maduagwu and they had an agreement.

He said, “I called the man, we had an understanding, I paid very well for it, rolled out the script, called Moses in, we shot it and we’re about to release the ending of it. I’m not stupid. I will never make that kind of mistake.” 

Noting the effect of the stunt on his movie, Jim Iyke said, “We buried over N20m in the promotion of that film and people were still viewing it with a certain degree of cynicism. Immediately there was a scandal, it caught fire.”