Afropop star, Yemi Alade, has shared how she once struggled with a brief cigarette addiction during her university days but decided to quit after it began affecting her voice and forcing her to conceal the habit in public.
In an interview with Chude Jideonwo, the Johnny hitmaker revealed that what started as a casual experiment with smoking as a teenager soon became a nightly routine before bedtime.
“Some people say I don’t smoke, I don’t this, I don’t that. When I was in the university I tried smoking. It did not work out. But before it did not work out, it worked out a bit too much. I started needing to smoke before I go to bed. I was getting addicted to that lifestyle. But also, in public, I would hide the cigarette,” she said.
Alade explained that the discomfort of hiding her smoking habit eventually led her to reevaluate her choices.
“So, I was like, ‘What’s this life; the discomfort that I can’t go to bed without smoking and then when I go out, I am going to hide the cigarette? As a teenager in the university trying to figure out life, I also made certain decisions for myself that if I’m going to hide to do something, I will not do it. Because I like to be aware of my environment and my decisions. And I just said I don’t think cigarettes are for me,” she recounted.
The singer added that the habit negatively impacted her voice, which pushed her to quit entirely.
“They are not for me. And they harmed me, they affected my voice anyways. So I stopped. Smoking for me did not last up to a year,” she stated.
