Nollywood Actor Who Slept on British Buses

Yemi Awomodu is a Nigerian actor who was already working in Nollywood before he moved to the United Kingdom. In an interview published by TheNewsGuru in May 2025, he looked back at that period. His father died in 2003, and he put his own grief aside to support his mother and siblings. About two years later, in 2005, it caught up with him, and he stayed indoors for almost two weeks.

He then travelled to the UK. He had been dating a woman who lived there and who knew of his interest in studying; she told him about a school offering English Language courses. He said the move went smoothly because he was married at the time and his wife at home made things easier.

Later, he said, he went through a great deal in the marriage and left it, and he became homeless. The article does not give the year. He described sleeping on buses and park benches in the cold, going without regular washing, and struggling to afford food and hygiene for months. He remembered a woman who recognised him as an actor and advised him to eat well so that his face would look better; he said that remark stayed with him.

At one point he begged for money on the street to make a phone call. With what he was given, he rang a colleague, the actor Tosin Abiola, who offered him a place to stay, and that ended his time on the street. He said he was hurt but not depressed, and described the period as one that made him who he is now. The article does not go into his later career.