Media personality Chude Jideonwo shared the inspiration behind his popular podcast, “Interview Series With Chude,” during a conversation with filmmaker Mo Abudu before his 40th birthday.
Chude Jideonwo explained that he started the podcast after overcoming depression, which was triggered by online trolling following his involvement in the 2015 campaign.
Jideonwo mentioned that watching an episode of ‘Super Soul Sunday’ with Oprah Winfrey and Brené Brown discussing handling criticism without losing vulnerability helped him in his search for answers.
“WithChude comes from a unique place. I was going through clinical depression in 2016, and in 2017, after overcoming it, I noticed I was trending on Twitter,” he said.
“I trended on Twitter for three days consistently for what I did with the 2015 campaign. People continued to criticise it for three days.
“One day, I woke up, picked up my phone, saw the trend, and broke down in tears. I then called a colleague asking him why Nigerians hate me so much. He gave me an intellectual strategic answer but it was not what I was looking for because I was hurt.
“So, I went on YouTube and searched ‘what do when people hate you’. I came across an interview between Oprah Winfrey and Brené Brown.
“They were talking about Brown’s viral TED talk on shame and vulnerability and how people attacked her for being overweight. So, she talked about how you have to be ready for backlash when you are in the arena without losing your ability to feel.
“The conversation healed me and that motivated the show, a show that heals people. The show was recorded by Oprah in Chicago or wherever and I was in Lagos being healed. So, I said to myself that I would do a show like this but for Africans.”
