It started out like an explosion. After Kenya’s leading TV Stations including Citizen TV, KTN Home and NTV announced temporary halts on TV dramas’ and comedies’ production, stars came out asking for help when they hit a rough patch.
Most notably, Tahidi High actor Kinuthia Kamau (Omosh) surfaced in June 2021 seeking menial jobs after leaving the famed show that had a cult-like following during the aughts. Omosh cried for help just weeks after Kenyans had galvanized contributions he claimed yielded less than Ksh1 million and could not comfortably settle his debts .
Before Omosh came out of the woods begging Kenyans to come to his rescue, his Tahidi High co-star, Dennis Mugo, popularly known as OJ, had called out Citizen TV in September 2020 accusing the media house of reusing content without properly compensating the stars.
Other stars including Machachari’s Tyler Mbaya (Baha) and Malik Lemuel (Govi) as well as stars from other shows across the industry also ran into headwinds after production on their shows hit an abrupt halt.
It turns out that the predicament that some of the stars find themselves in after their 15 minutes of fame runs out is largely a tragedy of their own making.
An industry veteran, who had interacted with some of the stars and spoke to Kenyans.co.ke on condition of anonymity, explained that for most of the actors, apart from the fame that the line of work attracts, the industry requires savings and investment discipline just like any other profession.
He further noted that some of the stars, who enjoyed fame and fortune at the peak, did not properly plan their finances.
"It is not about actors, It is in every discipline... Actors are not different from any other employee. who wants to earn a living. It is all a question of personal discipline.
"Artists are not special, it happens in every discipline in life,” stated the veteran.
For some stars who join the industry with an eye for acting and giving out quality work, their efforts are shielded by the fame that not many people can handle really well.
The media manager told this writer that some stars gave in to repeated free alcohol offers from stunned fans and easily found themselves hooked to alcoholism.
"There is a cost to fame, when you are famous and everybody recognises you in the supermarket, people tend to deal with that differently. There are people who can't handle fame and sometimes it put pressure on people to live beyond their means because they are famous.
"Also because you are famous, people will be very good to you and it is very easy to slip into alcoholism because everybody is buying you drinks and you are being invited to a lot of things,” he added.
BBC journalist, Ferdinand Omondi, who played a role in Tahidi High show before ditching theatre to chase his career as a journalist, explained to Kenyans.co.ke that it always narrowed down to planning and expanding horizons, a character that some of the actors lacked.
He joined Tahidi High while interning at Citizen TV and when the opportunity to enhance his career opened up, he exited the stage.
"I sought of had a back-up plan. I studied journalism at KIMC (Kenya Institute of Mass Communication) and by the time I got Tahidi High, I was actually doing an internship at Citizen TV. After getting that job, there are those who will be happy just doing Kenya National Theater and doing the play. There are those who will actively look at other opportunities.
"For me, when there was an opportunity to some journalism, I weighed between Tahidi High and journalism, which was a career at that time and I put acting aside,” he stated.
He noted that some stars became egoistical and did not expand their horizons. In some instances, actors could curtail their own progress by acting stubborn on set.
"I do know that some people were staying there. There are those who got in there who do their acting and are asked to write scripts and camerawork and will keep their eyes open for other opportunities.
“You think you already arrived. If you are stubborn on this set and are trying to get on another set, scriptwriters and producers usually talk and it becomes very difficult to get another job,” he added.
Child Actors
The transition has especially been tough for child actors who are said to suffer from psychological challenges while growing up under the sharp focus of the limelight.
The veteran media manager told Kenyans.co.ke that he had on numerous occasions turned away parents who had presented their young children as prospective actors on the station. He noted that the child stars were often pushed into the limelight by parents who saw them as another source of income.
“When you put an eight-year-old on the screen to become famous, they are still growing so they will have a lot of difficulty coping with fame because they do not grow up like normal children and in the process, there might be some psychological changes.
"Sometimes it is because of necessity that parents push their children to act. A child who becomes famous needs to be protected very much psychologically by their parents. Because of acting, not enough emphasis is put on education, so they may be not performing well at school and there is a high cost to that,” he stated.
Tom Osborne, a psychology major from Harvard University, corroborated with the observation noting that for the child stars, their peers expected more from them. The expectations often distort their transition since they are used to rudimentary interactions during rehearsals.
"For child actors, there are different reasons. It is consistency. There are those who will act in their childhood because their parents told them to do that or those who will want to continue but their parents prefer them to follow other careers.
"It could be parental censorship. or they might get bored. It could be that they are looking for that instant success and glamour but may not find it. It takes patience which not everybody has,” concluded Ferdinand Omondi.
