Nigerian singer Adekunle Gold has shared his experience of being trolled online after publicly revealing his struggle with sickle cell disease.
The “Orente” singer disclosed that he was “attacked and abused” on social media following his revelation. In a recent interview with CNN, Adekunle Gold explained that he decided to raise awareness about sickle cell disease after gaining the courage to speak up.
He stated his mission is to make people living with sickle cell feel “safe” and supported. “I want people living with sickle cell to feel safe, to feel like they have help and support,” he said. “They call you a sickler… Recently, when I talked about it on the song [‘5-star’], I saw a lot of tweets from people attacking and abusing me. I’m speaking about sickle cell disease now because I just got the courage to come out and speak up openly about it. A lot of people can’t share their stories like I can.”
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Adekunle Gold, who has known about his diagnosis since childhood, recalled constantly putting himself in situations that made him sick. “I’ve known about my sickle cell disease all my life. I knew since I was a child that I couldn’t do certain things. They said, ‘You know you have sickle cell, you can’t play football in the rain just like your peers.’ And I was like, ‘No, I want to play.’ I’ve always been rebellious,” he said.
Growing up, he frequently experienced sickle cell crises and was often in the hospital. Despite the challenges, he refused to let the disease define him. “I constantly put myself in situations that made me sick. For example, I’m not supposed to be in the rain, so what happened to me was that I would have pains in my joints from being in the rain. But I always knew that I didn’t want this thing [sickle cell] to define me.”
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