I don’t know the truth about their marriage, but I know what a witch hunt looks like.

The dragging doesn’t make sense.
The outrage doesn’t add up.
And the ease with which people have turned her into a symbol of dishonesty, of instability and of guilt is louder than any evidence anyone has presented.

🎥 Full Interview: Stella Damasus on Teju Babyface Show (2024).
Watch on YouTube

Because when Daniel posted what he posted, the internet didn’t ask, “Why now?”
It didn’t ask, “Is this necessary?”
It didn’t ask, “Is this fair?”
It said, “Finally.”

Finally, we can come for Stella again.
Finally, we have permission.

Daniel’s post wasn’t just a rebuttal. It was a performance. A performance of righteousness, of withheld fury, of strategic silence finally broken. A man who hadn’t said a word in years suddenly returns with “footnotes”, emails, timelines, and a side dish of public threats. He tells us what is true. What is legal. What is documented. But what he does not tell us, and what people refuse to ask, is why this needed to happen online in the first place.

Because here’s the thing: Stella didn’t insult him. She didn’t drag him. In her interview, she said one thing: “I found out that my marriage had ended on YouTube.” A sentence. An emotional truth. Not a legal claim. But Daniel responds with “That’s a lie,” as if emotional devastation is something that can be cross-examined in court.

The internet clapped.

They clapped for a man who used a child, his own child, to imply something devastating without naming it. A man who framed himself as the one who escaped a hostage situation, while never once acknowledging the emotional breakdown a woman may have been trying to survive. A man who built his case by showing us her emails, but not his own behavior.

And let’s not forget. The entire interview was about her.
Her story. Her journey. Her growth.
A 57-minute reflection where she didn’t name or shame him.
And yet he responded like she dragged his entire legacy.

Now, let’s talk about those emails. The supposed “gotcha” moment. Stella saying she wants to move forward with the divorce not because Daniel served her or informed her, but because he left their home in 2020, never came back, and made it clear he wasn’t returning. That’s not confusion. That’s emotional closure arriving through absence. So how does that contradict what she said? Where is the lie?

But that is not what matters to the online crowd. The question was never “Who is telling the truth?” It was “How can we confirm what we already wanted to believe about Stella?”

And believe me, they wanted to believe the worst.

This is where the culture comes in. Because what this is not about is just Daniel versus Stella. What this is really about is the performance of morality online, and how Nigerians especially love to drag women under the illusion of defending men’s peace.

We say we hate gossip, but the moment a man with good grammar posts a thread, we treat it like gospel.
We say we hate public fights, but the moment a woman expresses pain, we accuse her of attention-seeking.
We say we want the truth, but we don’t. We want stories that make us feel smart, righteous, and in control of someone else’s narrative.

That is why you will hear people say: “She’s pulling a Doris.”
As if the same man’s repetition of a pattern means the women are copying each other.

Let’s pause there. Two women. Same man. Same arc. And you are telling me the problem is the women mirroring each other, not the man recycling behavior?

Let’s go deeper. Someone online even claimed Stella produced a movie Doris acted in, directed by Daniel. That would suggest a betrayal. An overlap. A Nollywood-style triangle. But it is not true. There is no record, no production, no verified project where all three of them worked together in those roles. That false detail spread not because it was credible, but because it sounded spicy enough to stick.

This is what online culture has become. Not information. Not insight. Performance. Posturing. Morality cosplay. People talk with confidence about marriages they have never witnessed. They compare timelines with no context. They drag women for being with “another woman’s ex,” as if there is a moral constitution being signed and shared at every Nollywood gathering.

“She dated her colleague’s ex-husband.”
Was she supposed to hold a press conference with Doris before dating him? Were they even friends? Did they even know each other personally? Okay, we are all IT consultants now. We have met at a few conferences, so I should track you down and confirm with your ex before I date you? Point me to the section of the Nigerian movie industry code of conduct where this is written. And even if it exists, I want evidence it was discussed, shared among all industry professionals, and signed as part of Nollywood induction.

And what if Stella had said, “I don’t want to raise another woman’s child”?
She would still have been dragged.

She could not have won. That is the point.

This is what we do. We disguise our cultural misogyny as “critical thinking.” We form fake ethics we do not live by. We take silence from men as maturity, and speech from women as manipulation. And we keep doing it over and over again because it makes us feel like we are smarter than the women we secretly resent.

So no, this is not just about Daniel’s post. This is about the audience that made that post feel powerful. The audience that gave it legs. The audience that does not care about healing or truth, only about who can be made into a spectacle.

And when it is a woman? Even better.

Because the truth is, it is not just the dragging that is the problem. It is the certainty. The way people speak as if they were in the house. As if they sat through the arguments. As if they read every message, heard every conversation, watched every silence unfold in real time.

And yet, none of you were there.

But here you are, quoting the man word for word, calling it “proof.” Sharing the post like scripture. Meanwhile, you did not even listen to the interview you are claiming to fact-check. You don’t know what she said. You only know what someone told you she said.

Daniel even quotes her: “You screamed at me boldly, ‘I don’t want to be here, but I have to be here!’” as if those words, ripped from their emotional context, are self-incriminating.

But who exactly was the hostage? What was the conversation around that moment? Was she expressing fear? Exhaustion? Was it a cry for help from someone already stuck in a marriage she didn’t feel safe in?

Then he follows it with, “What’s left for a man to do when his own home starts sounding like a hostage situation?” And just like that, a line of emotional distress becomes a justification for escape. He doesn’t explain. He rebrands. He turns her voice into a weapon against herself. He calls it a hostage situation, not because she threatened him, but because she expressed the reality of someone who clearly felt stuck. Not heard. Not free.

And then, he frames his exit as noble. “I packed my son, my peace, and my entire life.” That’s not testimony. That’s theatre. A line written to win sympathy, to signal restraint, to remind the public that he’s the one who left with dignity. Meanwhile, the woman he left behind is the one still carrying the weight of silence.

Then comes the name-dropping. “Wale and Linda are still alive and well in Dallas. We all had these conversations.” Another performance cue. Not evidence. Not context. Just an appeal to invisible witnesses the public can’t cross-check. Designed to sound convincing, while saying nothing.

And then finally: “You know what you did. And more importantly, you know the truth.”
That line is not for her. It’s for us. It’s a narrative device. A dark fog thrown over the conversation, inviting suspicion without responsibility. It’s what abusers do when they want to indict you publicly without saying what you’re guilty of. It’s what manipulators say when they want people to read between the lines, but only in their favour.

And the public did.
They did exactly what he hoped they would do.
They filled in the blanks.

Because we do not want full stories.
We want confessionals we can weaponise.

But the minute she said something, just one sentence that did not paint him as the gracious one, the internet acted like it had been disrespected personally. Like her truth was a crime.

And this is what always happens. The moment a woman’s emotional timeline does not match the man’s legal one, she is called a liar. The moment her grief does not follow their idea of closure, she is accused of trying to resurrect drama. As if she is not allowed to remember the moment her life cracked, only the day she made it official.

That is the trap. The man is allowed to walk away with the narrative. The woman is only allowed to speak if it confirms it.

So no, I don’t know the full story of their marriage.
But I know what a witch hunt looks like.
And this, this is one.