MY WIFE IS A FAKE –EDDY MONTANA

His seven-year-old marriage to famous singer of gospel music, Kenny Saint Brown, recently crashed like a pack of cards. But Eddy Montana, ex-member of the defunct musical group, The Remedies, appears determined to put all that behind him and move on with life.

Indeed, it would look as if the break-up was all Eddy needed to bounce back to the musical stage, as he told Spectacles on Monday that he was set to launch a new album after a long absence from the scene.

“Yes, I am back. I have been working on my latest album for the past three months. It is called the Montana Fire. It is a brand new fire and it is the Eddy Montana fire. We are writing a lot of jams and we are working with a lot of producers,” he said.

According to the musician, his latest album is a combination of everything. “That is why it is called Montana Fire,” he explained. “It is the first time I am doing everything in one album. People used to know me for just Afro hip-hop music. But I have grown beyond the days of The Remedies now. I have a different focus. I am writing things that reflect on life; things that talk about our situations and how to get out of those situations and move ahead.”

Two former members of The Remedies, Tony Tetuila and Edris Abdulkareem, have moved up since the group broke up; but not so with Eddy who would readily blame the situation on the recording company that used to handle his works.

He said,“At times they would want to blame it on the artiste, but there is little or nothing the artiste can do. There are times you would want to do one or two things, but the same company would tell you that you are compromising their efforts. You wait for them to handle things but they don't do them on time. They even end up not handling them at all. So you return to square one.”

To those who still wish that the popular group would come together again, Eddy says, “The Lord is good; anything can happen. Man proposes, God disposes. He just might have it in his plans for us to come together. As for me, I am open-minded towards that.”

Eddy is one artiste trailed by many scandals. But he says it is no fault of his that he is in such a situation. According to him, he would have been a happy man if he never had the chief executive of his former label in his life. Now Eddy says he is as free as a bird.

Asked the greatest problem he had had in life, Eddy came right out with it: “My (estranged) wife and her family. I had to deal with that problem. I had to face them.”

This was the same Eddy who many saw as a golddigger for marrying into the Ogungbe family. To that, he said, “That is what people think. But where is the gold? For you to think I am a gold digger, you should know me as well. You should know where I am coming from. You should ask if I didn't have gold of my own. My dad served in the police force for 35 years. He retired as a Commissioner of Police. My mother is a businesswoman. I am from a family of eight; half of us are in the US. I just refused to live in the US, that is why I am here playing music.

“I married Kenny because I was making enough money. I knew I could take care of her. I loved her.”

Eddy denied marrying Kenny because of the influence the union would have on his career.

He said, “Let me make this clear once and for all: she was nobody when I met her. Financially, everythingcally she was nothing. She was just the A and R director of Kennis Music. I didn't meet her because she was a rich babe or because she came from a rich family. If they were that rich, her brother should have paid us upfront when they signed us on.”

Although they have fallen apart, Eddy says he has no regrets marrying Kenny. “I don't have any regret. I met the right person. Along the line, she became the wrong person. She placed herself in that position. No matter what, I was the husband in that relationship. I am a Christian and I go to church. I married a woman who virtually slept in church everyday. I had to learn to go for fellowships.”

Eddy also denied reports that he is a wife-beater. “I never beat my wife. They just tried to batter my image. That wasn't all they accused me of. It was from marijuana, to the house girl scandal, to a lot of other things. There was nothing like all those stuff they accused me of, including the house girl thing.”

So did he actually impregnate his house girl? Spectacles asked

Eddy was outraged as he said, “I did not. We later found out who her boyfriend was. My wife just used that terrible accusation to batter my image. She knows that. I was the one who discovered that the girl was pregnant in my house. My wife, a woman, did not know that her house girl was pregnant. How would she know when she was gallivanting all over the country? She never knew what was happening in her own house. I discovered the house girl was pregnant and I called my wife's attention to it.

“If I was responsible for the pregnancy, I wouldn't have told my wife that the girl was pregnant. I would have been happy that she didn't notice it. Is it not logical? I would have found a way to get the girl out of the house. My wife acted like an illiterate. And she is a Master's degree holder.”

Obviously the marriage has gone sour, but was that enough for Eddy to describe his wife as a lesbian partner of another Nigerian singer, like he allegedly did in a recent press interview? Eddy said he never called his wife a lesbian.

“I didn't call her a lesbian. I only said that I caught them nude in my bathroom. Don't I have the right to say what I saw? Ask them what they were doing inside the bathroom together, in a married man's house. The time she was in the bathroom with another woman, I would have liked to be the one there. She didn't spend that kind of time with me. Whenever I walk into the room and meet my wife naked, she covers her body.”

It is widely believed that Eddy could have grown envious of the height that Kenny had attained in music.

Again, Eddy was outraged.

“Haa! What was she singing? I taught her all she knew. Kennis Music did not teach her anything. I have been a professional singer cum songwriter cum song rearranger.

“My wife was singing trash. Was it not 'You Are Worthy, Worthy' that she was singing? Come on! I am a hip-hop artiste. We had to work on her songs and her build and her career. I did a lot to change her singing technique and her writing. If you watch her performances these days, she even walks like me.”

Why on earth did Eddy go as far as saying his wife was going out with Dayo (D-one), Keke's friend and partner, Spectacles asked.

“I had to say that. I was not the one in question. They tried to put me on the stand as if I was the one in question. I thought that in the Christian world, Christians don't go through divorce or through separations.

I did not tell anybody I was born again. Everybody knew Eddy. They knew I was a wild cat. But if you know me, you would appreciate me, because I am not a monster. For her, a born-again Christian, to get married to me, she must have seen something special. She shut her eyes to my marijuana and my women and my music. She carried herself and she landed where I was with all my Igbo (hemp). Now, she is telling people that I do this, I do that, and I smoke Igbo and all that. Those things are not new. These were the same things people knew I was doing before she married me. So who is trying to paint the other black? She is a fake.”

Eddy said he had to open up on a lot of things because Kenny was painting him black.

“She tried to paint me black and I had to open up. People didn't know who she was. You just have to question the credibility of the person painting me black. Her credibility should be questioned too. You shouldn't paint me black when you know that you are not clean.

“She sold me out to her family. Each time we have a man/wife discussion, she runs to them and discuss with them. The next day, somebody in that family is calling me to fire back. How can I trust that kind of wife?”

Asked if he sees the marriage working again, Eddy said, “I am not thinking about it. It is the last thing I would think of now. I pray that things work out well, but I will not go out of my way for things to work out well. You portray yourself holy to the church but at home, you don't have a home. Churches should bring up responsible people in the society. They should groom good housewives and husbands.

“My wife says she is Kenny Saint Brown in the church. But at home, she is Kenny Saint Fire. A woman who does not submit herself to her husband can never convince me that she is a true Christian.”