Moses Allen, the manager of veteran Nollywood actor Hanks Anuku, has dismissed fresh concerns about the actor’s mental health after a viral video showed him sitting by a roadside in Abuja.
Eelive.ng reported that the video, which surfaced over the weekend, captured Anuku dressed in jeans, a black top and trainers while sitting near a road in Wuse 2, Abuja.
In the footage, he appeared to be talking to himself while holding a disposable cup, prompting many social media users to question his wellbeing.
Reacting to the speculation in an interview with Premium Times, Allen insisted that the actor is mentally sound and that people have misunderstood his personality.
According to him, Anuku is naturally artistic and often immerses himself in his own creative world, which some people wrongly interpret as unusual behaviour.
He said: “So I understand you guys might have seen a video and then care to ask. It’s better to ask than to start making presumptions like other people used to do every time. You see, Hanks is a character; he’s an actor. So most of what he does is in a different world of his own.
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He continued: “He does those things, people mistake it for madness or craziness. No, an artist is actually never really normal, you understand. An artist, in the true sense of it, is actually never really normal because your presence is in a different realm, in a creative realm.”
Allen further argued that nothing in the viral clip suggested the actor was mentally ill, stressing that Anuku was calm, properly dressed and not disturbing anyone.
He concluded: “He wasn’t naked. He wasn’t abusing anybody; he wasn’t calling people names and everything. He was trying to float. Maybe he was trying to rehearse or to imagine a scenario. He was imaginative in that video. I don’t see anything that he did that is wrong.”
The manager also maintained that Anuku is currently in a much better place mentally than he was years ago.
Questions surrounding the actor’s mental health first gained attention in 2022 after videos of him in tattered clothing circulated online.
However, actress Shan George later explained that the footage had been recorded on a movie set, while Anuku repeatedly denied claims that he was mentally unstable.
Speaking in a 2024 interview with content creator Lucky Udu, the actor revealed that the viral video had significantly damaged his career.
He explained that he had simply been preparing for a movie role and trying to get into character when the footage was recorded, adding that the misunderstanding cost him acting opportunities, friendships and income, leaving him deeply traumatised.
