- Ruth Kadiri has opened up about her move to YouTube, saying it was a difficult but intentional decision driven by her desire for personal happiness and creative fulfillment rather than external validation.
- In a recent interview, she reflected on her long career, her beginnings as a writer, and the challenges of understanding YouTube’s business model. Kadiri emphasized trusting her instincts, staying true to her vision, and encouraged entertainers to take full advantage of digital platforms to bring their creative ideas to life.
Actress and filmmaker Ruth Kadiri has opened up about her decision to start making films on YouTube, admitting it was not an easy move.
In an interview with Jay On Air, Kadiri said her main focus is personal happiness and fulfillment, not external validation.
“The last thing I want to do as a person is to lose myself in the process of being an entertainer. I need to be able to keep the wealth of happiness, of fulfillment for myself whilst growing and building what I want to build. And I’m not going to let anybody sway me,” she said.
With over two decades in the entertainment industry, Kadiri recalled starting out behind the scenes as a writer. “Okay, so I haven’t been counting. I’ve been into entertainment for a very long time. Even when I was in Unilag, I was already into entertainment. So there are so many aspects of it for me. I started behind the scenes as a writer.”
She revealed that joining YouTube filmmaking was challenging at first. “It wasn’t as easy. People were already making films on YouTube. It wasn’t something that I was so aware of. I didn’t understand the business. I didn’t understand how it was. And it wasn’t so appealing at that time. But when I wanted to do it, I knew how my own was going to go. Most times when I want to do something, I know when it’s going to succeed. I don’t know how I know, but I know,” she said.
Kadiri added that she is often misunderstood by people who don’t see her long-term vision. “I would say, because people don’t understand the long-term goals. And you also probably, if you have energy to explain, you do. If you don’t, you just keep it short,” she said.
Encouraging fellow entertainers to take advantage of digital platforms, she noted, “With the tools and the opportunities like YouTube and lots of platforms, I expect entertainers to be going crazy and wild and creating things and stuff like that. All those things we wrote in our journals, we are not doing it anymore.”