Nigerian singer Adekunle Gold has spoken of how he was ridiculed online after making public his sickle cell illness diagnosis.
The ‘Orente’ crooner disclosed that he was “attacked and abused” on social media following his revelation.
Speaking in a recent interview, Adekunle Gold said he decided to create awareness about sickle cell disease after summoning the courage to speak up.
The singer said he is on a mission to make people living with sickle cell feel “safe.”
In his words;
“I want people living with sickle cell to feel safe, to feel like they have help and support.
“They call you a sickler… Recently, when I talked about it [my struggle with sickle cell] on the song [‘5-star’], I saw a lot of tweets from people attacking and abusing me.
“I’m speaking about sickle cell disease now because I just got the courage to come out and speak up openly about it. A lot of people can’t share their stories like I can.”
Adekunle Gold revealed that he has been aware of his disease since he was a child, and that growing up, he was continually putting himself in circumstances that made him ill.
“I’ve known about my sickle cell disease all my life. I knew since I was a child that I couldn’t do certain things. They said, ‘You know you have sickle cell, you can’t play football in the rain just like your peers.’ And I was like, ‘No, I want to play.’ I’ve always been rebellious,” he recalled.
“I’ve known about my sickle cell disease all my life because growing up, I had crises every time. I was in the hospital back-to-back.
“As a child, I constantly put myself in situations that made me sick. And it affected me a lot. For example, I’m not supposed to be in the rain, so what happened to me was that I would have pains in my joints from being in the rain. But I always knew that I didn’t want this thing [sickle cell] to define me.”
