Mrs Idowu Phillips (a.k.a Iya Rainbow) who has remained unmarried after the death of her husband 35 years ago said she was not interested in marriage again.
In an interview with punch, she retorted, “Over my dead body would I get married again. My husband closed my heart with a padlock and he went away with the key.
“I don’t trust the men of these days. There was one that said he wanted to marry me but he ran away after he saw all my kids. I have forgotten how to want a man. With five kids to cater for, I had no thoughts of that. In those days, I could go to four different locations in a day, to tell you how hard I was working to make money to take care of my children.”
Recalling how her late husband died, she said, “I can never forget the day my husband died in 1984. I felt the world was going to end on that day. He was my alpha and omega. I used to be a nurse but he was the one that made me to become an actress. As a matter of fact, during his burial, I told people to put all our children with him in the grave that I didn’t want them again. The shock was just too much for me to bear. Imagine one becoming a widow at the age of 42.”
Despite being a nurse, Iya Rainbow expressed frustration that she was unable to save her former husband from the cold hands of death. She said, “I took him to several hospitals such as the General Hospital in Lagos. I was a staff member of the hospital then and immediately I took him there, he was attended to. To be fair, the doctors tried their best but God had the final say. When a person reaches his or her bus stop, he or she has to come down. He eventually died at the University College Hospital, Ibadan.”
The veteran actress also recalled that many people promised to help the family immediately after the demise of her husband but majority of them did not fulfil their promises. “There were a lot of promises but after a short while, many of them didn’t check up on us again. He was buried in Awe, Oyo State, and many people practically turned their backs on us after the ceremony,” she said.
