Ace comedian Bright Okpocha popularly known with his stage name, Basketmouth, has announced separation from his wife; Elsie Uzoma Okpocha, after 12 years of being together.
The stand up comedian broke the shocking news by himself through his Instagram handle on Thursday.
He wrote, “As much as it pains me to bring my personnel life to the public space, this is an unavoidable situation.
“After much deliberations, my wife and i have made the difficult decision to end our marriage.”
This lengthens the more, the litany of celebrities with crashed marriages in recent times.
Days earlier, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had granted request for divorce of the marriage between Paul Okoye of PSquare fame with wife, Anita.
But the case of Basketmouth and his wife was particularly shocking to many who were following events closely around the couple – They received the divorce announcement with disbelief.
Many recalled that four months earlier in September, Elsie had penned a beautiful and moving message to celebrate her husband when he turned 44.
She spoke glowingly of him, saying Basketmouth was her ride or die and that she loved him till eternity.
Elsie also shared his recent photo and a throwback photo of them together.
She wrote, “It’s my baby’s birthday today!!!!!! The love of my beautiful life…my best friend, my ride or die, my joy and happiness…. I celebrate you today and I wish you many more awesome years ahead and God’s endless blessings.
I LOVE YOU TILL ETERNITY.”
According to PM news, sign that the union was already having some cracks showed up in November when Basketmouth failed to celebrate their annual wedding anniversary which usually comes up in November.
Basketmouth met Elsie for the first time in 2003 at the University of Lagos where she was studying creative Arts. And they dated for seven years before they eventually tied the knot in 2010.
Basketmouth who was promoting one of his shows at the Univery of Lagos at the time, saw her pass by when he was sharing some flyers. He immediately got attracted to her and walked up to her to have a chat with her.
However when Basketmouth asked for her phone number, she gave it to him without hesitation.
Basketmouth later called the number only to hear a guy’s voice on the other end of the line. It turned out that Elsie had given him a fake number.
BasketMouth felt angry, but did not relent. He kept going back to the same spot where he had initially met her hoping he would see her pass by.
And he was lucky on a certain day when he saw her pass by again and he immediately proceeded to ask for her number the second time.
This time around, she gave him the correct number. However, Elsie was not receptive to him and so out of anger, he deleted her number.
Still, as if fate was determined to bring them together, he bumped into her a third time. This time around she was conversing with some friends. He approached her and asked for her number the third time.
However, Basketmouth had already decided decided that that would be the last time he would make an attempt to reach out to her. And Elsie soon began to warm up to him.
After the then lovebirds dated for seven years they decided to tie the knot at Giwa Barracks, Falomo, Ikoyi in 2010. By then Basketmouth had already had a child Amy out of wedlock.
The officiating minister was flown in from the UK to join them together. And he did everything on his own, from the solemnization to the prayers and finally the sermon.
They both have three beautiful children together: Janelle, Jason and Maya.
