Kenyan gospel artist and actress Lilian Munyali, famously known as Size 8, has revealed the first time she started drinking alcohol after avoiding it for quite a while during her teen years.
Speaking in an interview with Obinna TV, she said that fame is what made her dive into drinking heavy liquor so that she could drown her thoughts and forget the pressure she was getting from the online bullies.
She is known for her viral songs way back that were ‘Vidonge’ before she got saved and started singing gospel hits like ‘moto’.
According to Size 8, fame is a very lonely path that celebrities don’t talk about more often, saying that it is why she decided to start drinking because she was all alone and stressed.
“Fame is a very lonely path, accompanied by the pressure of one expected to be better than they are. It reached a point where people were seducing me and wanted the ‘Size 8’ and not Linet Munyali.
That is what made me start drinking sikua nakunywanga, and then I was drinking and ended up becoming lonely all the time,” Size explained.
She went on to say that drinking made her a loner, and she could even get drunk during the day. She used to struggle with sleep a lot and embarked on taking sleeping pills so that she could try to sleep.
It was when reality hit her that money and fame destroyed her life by making her lose friends because she had outshined her friends, and even her love life was not working, amongst many other things. The fame made her be choosy, leave alone, start drinking, but also choose bad company, ditching her true friends—something that made her succumb to depression for quite a while. Size 8 goes on to say that she was in such a critical state that sometimes she could even drink in her own house.
“Usiku nilikua nalia… kulala nilikua nakunywa pills za depression ndio nilale… love life inafail, friendships zinafail.
I feel into serious depression. I was completely depressed. Alafu nikaanza kukaa na pombe kwa hao nilikua nakunywa 24 hours to calm my nerves. Alafu nikaanza kutop up na bangi,” Size 8 said.
She realized that fame didn’t give her what she thought it was going to give her, as it tarnished her life upside down. It was after she went to church that she was spotted by an apostle, who told her to serve the Lord, as she had been chosen and the Lord had been grateful to her all along. She is now with kids and a husband, ‘Dj Moh’, and has been born again.