Actor Patrick Doyle has defended his colleague Jim Iyke’s controversial birthday message to actress Kate Henshaw, which stirred mixed reactions online.
Jim had posted the tribute on Instagram on Sunday, a day after Kate turned 54.
In the lengthy message laced with humour and risqué nostalgia, Jim began each paragraph with the phrase, “F**k you Kate,” as he recounted their past interactions.
“Fk you, on behalf of my 23-year-old self for treating me like your baby brother when you knew all that time I wanted to hit that,” Jim wrote.
“You kept manipulating my black ass by always looking out for me… slipping a couple of bucks in my hands to make sure I got a meal or transport fare back to my cousin’s.”
He went further to fantasise about what could have been if she had given him a chance in the past:
“Our love child would have been in his/her mid twenties now if you had let me experiment with my seed just a couple of times. What a gorgeous human we would have made together!”
Jim also revealed they eventually got intimate but blamed himself for why things didn’t last.
“You knew I had a great heart, but I was just crazy and dumb… You stopped looking out for me. Took everything I did literally, then ran off and married that ‘Oyibo’,” he wrote, adding, “It did end in praise. I was so proud!”
Amid the backlash and divided opinions, Patrick Doyle stepped in to show support for Jim on Friday. Sharing his thoughts on Instagram, the Ripples actor wrote:
“I think Jim paid my darling sister a very witty and affectionate compliment with his message. The Kate I know has an excellent sense of humour and will accept the compliment for what it truly is, an affectionate expression of admiration.”
However, not everyone shared Doyle’s sentiment. Tinsel star Gideon Okeke had expressed strong disapproval of Jim’s post in a comment shared on Monday.
He wrote:
“Somebody take a look at this Motherfukka over here. It’s the narcissistic effrontery for me. Such a bonehead. I wonder who puts these people in check.
“It’s this kinda rubbish behaviour that people condone, that gives other people the balls to be the actual pricks they are… in real life. Small boy. Talk anyhow in public. Tueh.”
While some fans have taken Jim’s tribute as harmless fun and a bold confession of youthful crush, others continue to question the appropriateness of his tone.
