Early on the week, Nigerian singer, Orezi took to Instagram to share a photo of himself supposedly burning up a N1000 note as he promoted his new single ‘Born Broke, Die Rich’. As expected, his comment section went up in flames as fans called him out for carrying out an illegal act that is punishable by law.
Now, Orezi has clarified the situation stating that the image was actually photoshopped as it was practically impossible for him to hold fire so close to his face in an attempt to burn the naira.
In an interview with Punch Newspaper, the UNILAG graduate said, “I never burnt the N1,000 note like people thought, it was just graphics; an edited picture. I did not burn the Nigerian currency. If you look at the picture, you would see that the fire almost got to my eyes. If it were real, I would not have been able to withstand the heat. I cannot allow fire to burn my eyes because I want to take a picture. I replied some comments when people were criticising me because of the picture.”
“I told them that it was an artistic paper and I did not burn the Nigerian currency. Why would I burn money to promote my music? A lot of my fans also tried to explain to those that were abusing me that it was an edited picture, but they would not listen. Some people went as far as saying that they would arrest me because it is against the law, but I did not burn the money. It is not everything that you can explain to people; sometimes you just have to keep quiet.”
Orezi also spoke on the 2019 single he is promoting and the inspiration behind the ‘Born Broke, Die Rich’ line. He said, “It own just a song for people like me who were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth, but we aspire to be great so that our children would not suffer the way we did. It is an inspirational song that advises people like me to work hard for their children’s sake. In the song, I said that my child must not suffer the way I did and that is why I work hard the way I do,”