Nollywood actress and media personality Ariyike Owolagba, widely known as Ariyiike Dimples, has opened up about the incident that made her abandon church attendance for three years.
Speaking on a recent episode of the Open Up podcast, the actress recounted how a comment from a church elder about her outfit left her feeling judged and unwelcome.
According to her, the elder insisted she was destined for hell simply because she wore a pencil skirt to church — an outfit the woman deemed inappropriate.
“In my community church, you see only elderly people. You barely see the young ones. The young ones have gone to other churches. It was too serious. Yes, you can have your doctrines, but there is a way you can simplify it for young people and take them in without judging them,” she said.
Ariyiike explained that the encounter frustrated her so much that she decided to stay away from the church entirely.
“The reason I stopped going to church was because I wore a pencil skirt to church and an elderly woman said I will go to hell fire. I was shocked and felt wrongly judged so I stopped going to church for 3 years. And thankfully, I was already out of my parents’ house,” she shared.
She added that the woman even reported her to her father, prompting her to send a photo of the skirt to her mother as proof that she wasn’t dressed indecently.
“The woman reported me to my dad. I had to take picture of the skirt and send to my mum to prove that I wasn’t dressing indecently. But my dad believed in the ideology of a community raising a child. So, I chose to avoid the community church so that they won’t see me,” she recalled.
Despite her experience, Ariyiike Dimples noted that she remains a practicing Christian.
