(David Oyelowo. Photo by The Independent)
Award-winning British-Nigerian actor David Oyelowo has shared a hilarious story about his time at a boarding school in Nigeria, revealing how he pretended not to understand Yoruba while secretly listening to everything happening around him.
Speaking during an interview, Oyelowo said he spoke Yoruba fluently while growing up but decided to conceal that fact when he attended boarding school in Nigeria as a teenager.
According to him, his foreign accent led many classmates to assume he could not understand the language, and he used that misconception to his advantage.
“It was like being the invisible man,” the actor said, explaining that students freely spoke around him in Yoruba, completely unaware that he understood every word.
Oyelowo recalled overhearing conversations about himself, including girls discussing their feelings for him, with some pretending not to like him while saying the exact opposite in Yoruba.
He jokingly revealed that the situation even led to him dating twin sisters at the same time a confession that left the interviewer stunned and in stitches.
He also admitted to hearing classmates gossip and sometimes speak negatively about him in the dormitory, but said he had the discipline to guard his secret throughout his two years at the school.
The biggest surprise came on his final day, when Oyelowo went around speaking Yoruba to everyone before departing, leaving his classmates shell-shocked upon realising he had understood their conversations all along.
“Their faces,” he recalled with laughter, describing the priceless reactions he received after finally revealing the truth.
