Ugandan singer Maro, real name Ronald Magada, has opened up about one of the darkest and most painful chapters of his life, revealing how a damaging rumour about his marriage pushed him into depression.
Maro had relocated to Germany with his longtime lover, Iris, whom he had been with for more than a decade.
However, just six months after moving to the country, a number of blogs began circulating claims that Iris had only married him because she was financially better off than him.
The allegations reportedly hit the singer hard, with Maro revealing during an interview with Galaxy FM that he struggled with depression as the narrative spread.
Things reportedly became even more difficult when his friends back home invited him for interviews. Since he was in Germany, Maro agreed to conduct the interviews via Skype.
However, there was one problem — he was home alone with his young daughter, who would repeatedly run in front of the camera during the interviews.
Maro says his friends had agreed to blur the child’s face, but that never happened, meaning her image ended up appearing publicly and, according to him, inadvertently gave more fuel to the already circulating rumours.
“I kept my child and my struggles as a man away from the public. For the interviews, we agreed with my friends that they would blur my child’s face. That time I was at home alone which means that my daughter was bound to interrupt my interviews because I couldn’t lock her out. She kept running into the camera and checking on me and they never blurred her face. Remember the stories on the streets that my wife had married me and when they saw me with my child, it made things worse. My child’s face was all over. This pushed the narrative further.’
