Fitness entrepreneur and media figure Maje Ayida has shared a deeply personal account of the emotional turmoil he endured after his highly publicized divorce from media personality and actress Toke Makinwa.
In a heartfelt testimony during a church service in the UK now circulating widely online Ayida spoke candidly about the profound depression he experienced following their 2016 breakup.
“I’ll be honest, I went through a very public divorce that left me depressed,” he said. “I felt incredibly alone and ashamed. I withdrew from society and stopped working. I couldn’t function.”
Ayida described how the intense public attention surrounding the divorce severely impacted his mental health and professional life. Isolating himself, he struggled with daily activities and lost the drive to continue his work.
“I lost focus, motivation even the will to get up in the morning,” he revealed. “It felt like people had already judged me. That perception started affecting my work, and when business deals started falling through, it really hit me hard.”
He also spoke about the loss of identity that came with career setbacks.
“As a man, your work becomes part of your identity. When I lost that, everything else began to unravel.”
In the 2025 video, Ayida details the lowest point of his life marked by insomnia, paranoia, and a deep sense of hopelessness.
“I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t know what sleep felt like anymore. I became paranoid thinking people were talking about me anytime I stepped outside. That fear pushed me even deeper into isolation.”
But Ayida said he eventually reached a breaking point and a turning point.
“I had to choose to survive. I realized I was in a very dark place and needed to find a way out. I started looking into how to cope with depression. The first thing I saw was ‘accountability.’ Taking responsibility made it harder at first but it became the foundation for healing.”
Ayida and Makinwa married in 2014, but their relationship ended in 2016 amid allegations of infidelity. Following the release of Makinwa’s memoir On Becoming which detailed their troubled marriage Ayida filed a ₦100 million defamation lawsuit in 2017.
In 2020, a Lagos High Court ruled in Ayida’s favor, awarding ₦500,000 in damages to be donated to a charity of his choice and ordering that defamatory content be removed from future editions of the book.
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