The drama surrounding Judy Austin and Yul Edochie’s marriage has once again dominated online conversations after Austin’s ex-husband, Emmanuel Obasi, resurfaced with fresh allegations.
PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that Mr Obasi alleged that Austin left him and took his two children to marry Yul. He pleaded with the public to help locate them and said he regretted financing her university education.
Just when the long-running controversy appeared to have faded from public attention, Mr Obasi, in a recent interview on “The Honest Bunch Podcast”, alleged that his marriage to Austin ended because of Yul.
He further alleged that Yul and Austin’s relationship began long before it became public knowledge in 2022.
Mr Obasi noted, “Any time we’re watching television and Yul Edochie appears, Judy Austin will no longer be concentrating. She’d tell me, ‘I love this man’, but she wouldn’t be saying it in that way. She would be praising him, or, after watching him, she would tell me that his voice sounded like her uncle, Chinedu. That’s why she loved him.
“Chinedu was the last-born of her father’s parents. So I just took it that way. Sometimes I ask myself what offence one man could commit against another man in this world. This isn’t a made-up story. I have four pieces of evidence showing that they were dating under my roof.”
Yul’s offers
Mr Obasi also disclosed that after praising Yul on screen, Austin returned home one day and told him she had met the actor.
According to him, Austin not only brought him news of meeting Yul but also relayed the offers Yul gave her.
“Judy came back home one day from school and asked me if I knew Yul. I said no, because I don’t watch Nigerian movies, I only watch foreign movies. She told me Yul was the son of actor Pete Edochie. I said I knew Pete Edochie. She told me she’d met his son, Yul, and that he told her she was wasting her time in my house, and asked why a beautiful lady like her would be married to me.
“She told me a lot of things Yul had said to her. She said Yul told her that her type should be moving with people like Genevieve Nnaji, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, and others. I disagreed with her because that wasn’t our agreement. The second thing she told me was that Yul had promised to become our family friend so he could help me financially. I said no, I didn’t need that help”, Mr Obasi added.
Judy Austin reacts
Reacting to Mr Obasi’s allegations, Austin said in a video posted on her Instagram page on Tuesday that she never had any relationship with Yul while married to her ex-husband.
She said it was shocking that Mr Obasi cooked up such lies against her and Yul, neither of whom had done him any wrong.
“I met Yul Edochie three years after my marriage ended. I met Yul Edochie on a movie set in 2016 for the very first time, and up till that time, I had had no interest, even in acting. In 2013, it was Sylvester Madu who encouraged me to consider acting. He’s still alive to attest to this. Any smart and learned person who listens to this podcast will see and hear how he’s contradicting himself in everything he said.
“That’s because everything he said is a lie. He said he doesn’t know where his kids are, so why is he still calling on Yul Edochie to release them when he doesn’t know if they’re with him? You’re calling him because when you mention his name, people will listen, because with your own name, nobody listens.”
Legal action
Furthermore, the actress announced that she will sue Mr Obasi.
She alleged that someone had paid her ex-husband to come and destroy her name, but said he could not.
“You didn’t give me my name, and you won’t be able to destroy it. He has been lying since 2022, if you watch his previous videos, you’ll see this, but all of this will come to a stop, because the court of law is where you have to defend everything you’ve said beyond a reasonable doubt.
“If you allege something, you must defend it. All the lies you’ve paraded against me and my family, you’ll defend in court.”
This newspaper reported that in 2022, Yul stirred controversy when he announced that Austin was his second wife amid a marital crisis with his first wife, May.