In an honest conversation with Dr. Ofweneke, Jackie opened up about the challenges of rejection and trauma, much of which stemmed from her complex relationship with her mother and the cultural shock she experienced when returning to Kenya.
She shared a painful memory from her infancy, explaining how her mother allegedly left her at the hospital for three months after birth. “My mom left me in the hospital because I had so much dark hair. When my aunties came to visit, they told her I was an ugly child,” Jackie recalled. This comment, she explained, caused her mother to become deeply upset, eventually abandoning her at Pumwani Hospital.
After spending six years in London with her father, returning to Kenya to live with her mother—who had remarried—was a significant adjustment for Jackie. “I went to London to stay with my dad. Then I came back and stayed with my mum, who was already married to someone else by then. We lived in Kawangware,” she reflected.
At 35, Jackie now looks back at her family dynamics, noting that her parents have been estranged for years and no longer communicate.
Jackie described feeling like “a weird kid” upon returning to Kenya, struggling to fit in at primary school. Following a disappointing performance in her KCPE exams, she went on to attend a nearby high school, a change she described as a relief. “Unlike primary school, where kids were dropped off in fancy cars, high school felt more equal, and that helped me open up about my struggles,” she said.
Her experiences with hardship motivated Jackie to never return to poverty. “I do not want poverty around me because I have lived it,” she emphasized. From a young age, she dreamt of a future filled with career success, a white wedding, a happy family, and financial security, inspired by her religious upbringing.
In 2014, Jackie met someone, and by 2015, she became a mother. The following year, she married her partner, Kennedy Paul. However, balancing motherhood with her desire to return to acting proved challenging. “About two years after I gave birth, I wanted to get back into acting and the stardom I had once known,” she said, but this ambition coincided with mounting tensions in her marriage.
Reflecting on her relationship, Jackie admitted that she had often played the role of a “people pleaser,” neglecting her own happiness in the process. After seven years of marriage, she knew it was time to move on. “Seven years of marriage! It was crazy. It was hard. One day I just woke up and thought, ‘This is not working.’ And we went our separate ways, despite trying several times to make it work,” she concluded.
