His mother left one morning without a word, no goodbye, no explanation, abandoning him, his father and his siblings.
He watched his father get slapped by touts right in front of him in the uncompleted building they called home. Poverty wasn’t a story they heard, it was the air they breathed.
There were many moments when his life could have gone the other way. The streets were waiting. Bitterness was calling. Violence could have felt like justice.
Instead, Hermes Iyele became the rare kind of human who stares life’s chaos in the face and still finds beauty in it. Who chooses joy even when life gives him none.
In our conversation, Hermes opens up about the dark days, surviving the slums, stepping into Big Brother and what that fame really did to him. He talks about his complex experience with polyamory, having one partner in Nigeria and another in Europe, and the lessons it has taught him about love, lust and the human experience.
It is the story of an angry teenager shaped by chaos at home, watching his parents’ marriage fall apart, waiting for a mother who promised to return in April but did not come back for seven years, living with a father who stayed when it would have been easier to walk away.
This was a man who gave everything and asked for nothing. A man who raised his children not with resentment but with love. And that love saved Hermes.
He says that if someone says a man cannot raise a child with love, they have never met his father. He knows what he lived and because of it, he took responsibility for his life and made something out of it.
And then there is love. “I require everybody in my relationship to be whole,” he says. He is not bothered by society’s ideas about marriage or relationships. For him, love is a human experience and human experiences include pain. Even good things end and when they do, you do not take your life because of it.
This is not just an interview. It is a mirror, showing what it means to fight your way into the light. Hermes did not just grow up, he fought to become.
Watch Here : https://vimeo.com/1107528840
