Bobrisky is a Nigerian internet personality who is a popular cross-dresser (or a transgender woman, which is a term we will be using in this article) in Nigeria. She was born Okuneye Idris Olarenwaju in 1992 and also goes by the nickname ‘Bob Risky’ or ‘risky bobo’. While there is no right existing exclusively for trans-people in Nigeria, Bobrisky still lives freely although on occasions has faced cyberbullying, discriminations and persecutions from authorities.
Controversies have always surrounded her life and with the attention, she has become a much-followed internet personality over the last few years. Prior to this time, she faced lots of hurdles on her way to achieving the gender she has chosen.
Take a glance at 10 facts you should know about Bobrisky before continuing with the rest of her biography.
10 facts about Bobrisky
- Okuneye Idris Olarenwaju is the full name of Bobrisky and she was born in 1992.
- Bob risky was born into a Muslim before converting to Christianity.
- She coined her moniker from her childhood nickname ‘Bobo’, and risky, a nod to how she continually challenges Nigerian conservative attitudes.
- She became popular after she was arrested for cross-dressing and remains popular for her online antics and brimstone personality.
- The internet celebrity and Tonto Dikeh have been very good friends and appear to be as close as even siblings.
- The popular transgender online personality is allegedly worth millions of dollars and owns a five-bedroom duplex in Lagos upper-class region, Lekki Peninsula.
- Bobrisky was the most searched individual in Nigeria on Google from October 26 to November 2016.
- She once posted about being gay but had quickly deleted the post after some time.
- She underwent surgery in 2019 to add feminine features to her body but it is unclear if this involved changing her sexes, because if so, she would have to be referred to as transexual.
- Bobrisky’s Snapchat premium account has over 2 million subscribers as of February 2020.
Bobrisky Biography: Early life
Bobrisky was born a male named Okuneye Idris Olarenwaju on 31 August 1992 to Yoruba parents from Ijebu-Igbo, Ogun State. While the names of her late parents are withheld, Bobrisky pictures once revealed them during a Muslim Sallah festival in Ogun state.
She had travelled to her hometown in Ijebu-Ode to celebrate Eid-el-Kabir in October 2019 and posted the parents of Bobrisky photos on Instagram.
Bob had grown up in Lagos State, one of Nigeria’s major cities and schooled there. According to Wikipedia’s article on the transgender woman, she is an alumnus of King’s College, Lagos, a prestigious and famous secondary school founded on 20 September 1909 that admits only male students.
After completing her first Secondary School Certificate Examination, she went on to the University of Lagos. The University of Lagos, popularly known as Unilag, is a public research university in Lagos, Nigeria. It was one of the first-generation universities in Nigeria and was founded in 1962. She studied accounting at Unilag after getting admission in 2001 and graduated in
While at the university, Bobrisky converted to Christianity because of several reasons. She said the Muslim practice of praying fives daily was exhausting for her. The second reason was that she was influenced by his Christian roommate.
Speaking about her conversion from Islam to Christianity, Bobrisly tells the Vanguard newspaper during a 2016 interview:
“I am not a practicing Muslim. If I have to be a practicing Muslim, I will have to do ablution five times a day and apply make-up after each ablution and that will be very stressful. I started going to church as an undergraduate. My room-mate was one of the executives of the Christian Fellowship.
“So I got fascinated and usually joined them to pray. I know prayer works and do that daily. My Muslim name is Idris. I don’t really have a Christian name. But I use ‘Olanrewaju’ as cover; by this, people will not know if I am a Christian or a Muslim.”
It is important to note that while still in secondary school and university, Okuneye Idris Olarenwaju, now called Bobrisky, identified as male.
However, Bobrisky started to come out slowly to the Nigerian conservative society at a time when effeminacy was strongly frowned upon. Even today, it is not generally accepted but opinions are changing with the increase in knowledge.
Bobrisky biography: Crossdressing
As mentioned in the last paragraph, Bobrisky started out slowly to display effeminacy. Effeminacy is the manifestation of traits in a boy or man that are more often associated with the feminine nature. This includes feminine behaviour, mannerism, style, or gender roles.
She revealed that even as a child, before fully coming out for a gender change, that her mother usually tried to force down her feminine behaviours. One online blog, Buzz Nigeria, even claimed that her mother once hired thugs to beat her.
Also according to the blog, Bobrisky’s gradual physical transformation began during her university days. While still identifying as a man, Bob bleached her skin. But she didn’t stop there then.
“[She] would apply modest facial makeup in [her] years in the university and wear women’s attire and deceived men in clubs and bars but always decline [sic] when an admirer expressed a desire for intimacy,” the blog claims.
Also, with her good female fashion sense even while identifying as a man, Bob went into the business of selling women clothing. She allegedly started dressing as a woman to attract customers.
Bobrisky before and after
A lot of people have sometimes wondered about what the popular transgender online personalitylooked like before and after bleaching her skin. It is, of course, not news that the transgender Nigerian social media celebrity had been dark-skinned in the past.
However, using skin lightening cream and chemicals, she had turned her dark to fairer shade, which she clearly preferred. So, it’s natural, for someone who is interested, to want to know what the internet celebrity used to look like. Luckily, there are quite a few Bobrisky pictures around, some of which have been shared by herself. See one below and another that shows her current look.
Many of the Bobrisky before and after photos on the internet is used as a means of scorn by people who dislike the celebrity. Here is one example of Biobrisky before and after picture circulating on the internet:
See another one here:
Is Bobrisky male or female?
If there is one thing that confused people in the past about Bobrisky, it is the question of whether she is a woman or a man? This is because the Nigerian conservative society does not allow people to come out openly as transgender.
However, the blame is not entirely on society’s shoulders as Bobriky previously went back and forth on this particular issue. As we mentioned, the internet sensation, whose birth name is Okuneye Idris Olarenwaju, had been born a man.
Initially, when Bobbrisky first started becoming popular following her cross-dressing antics, she was roundly persecuted for it. However, even then she was still identifying a male. It is only more recently that she identified as a woman, so it is only logical to call her what she prefers to identify as – a woman.
The first instance is when the celebrity went on a viral rant about fans referring to her as “bro”. At the time, she had shot back:
“I’m going to post a picture and you tell me, you look good bro. Who is your bro? Please, tani bro e? Your bro is in Yaba, collecting treatment.”
That was in May 2019 and Bobrisky clearly felt irritated to be referred to as a male. Also, in November 2019, she revealed that she had undergone major surgery to add feminine parts to her body. We would talk more about that in the proceeding section of this article.
So, it is only natural for media sources to start assigning her the female pronoun. So one can read something like the following about her, “Bobrisky, a known Nigerian transgender…” For instance see articles like these ones – Wikipedia, Capitalfm, Gal-dem – seem to confirm that many have agreed that the internet celebrity is a transgender woman.
Also read: Bobrisky hints that he might be pregnant
In 2018, Kito Diaries also revealed that she had come out to say she is a girl, in a comment attributed to her, she said:
“A lot of you have been asking me, ‘Bobrisky, are you a girl or a guy… Do you use the female toilet or you use the male toilet?’ Of course, I use the female toilet because I am a girl,” she declares in a video posted on Instagram. “Some others ask me, ‘Bobrisky, when you fill forms, do you fill the female or male?’ Of course, I fill female. Even at the airport, a guy cannot search me. It has to be a girl.”
Is Bobrisky a Snapchat shemale celebrity?
Bobrisky is also popularly listed as one of the few Nigerian Shemale celebrities and Snapchat Shemale celebrities. Here is a common explanation of Shemale:
A term most commonly used in the pornography industry to describe trans women or other people with male genitalia and female secondary sex characteristics (including breasts) acquired via hormones or surgery.
Thus, it is not correct to refer to her as a Shemale celebrity or even a popular Snapchat shemale celebrity. This is because Bob has said time and again that she prefers to be called a woman.
Bobrisky plastic surgery in 2019
She had taken time to transform from what she looked like to who she wants to be seen as. We have detailed her long journey from starting off as a crossdresser to bleaching her skin.
However, Okuneye Idris Olarenwaju, underwent some surgeries in 2019 in Dubai, to add feminine parts to her body. It is important however to clear the air surrounding transgender and transsexual people.
According to a Wikipedia definition:
“Transgender people have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from their sex assigned at birth. Some transgender people who desire medical assistance to transition from one sex to another identify as transsexual.”
Thus, Bob did not have to go through any surgery to become transgender. Identifying as a woman alone has made Bobrisky a woman and a surgery to change sexual organs will only make her transsexual.
Another important aspect of the surgery was that it turned out to be more painful than expected. The social media celebrity had taken to her Instagram page to describe the gory details of her post-recovery steps. She mentioned swelling and bleedings as well.
To read more about this, click here. However, after some time and clearly recovering from the procedure, she started to flood the internet with her pictures again. This time, she showed off her new body in sensational outfits and raunchy poses.
Besides breasts surgery, it is not known whether Bobrisky has undergone genital reassignment surgery, that is, whether or not her natural sexual characteristics have been altered to resemble that of females.
Bobrisky ‘Full sex change’ in 2021
In December 2020, the popular transgender online personality revealed that she will be going for a ‘full sex change’ in 2021. Via an Instagram post, the popular transgender woman who is mistaken for a shemale celebrity wrote:
“2021, I’m going for a full sex change. Columbia get ready.”
She said that she had saved over $300,000 for the process mentioning a certain Dr Philip. In a followup post, Bob risky revealed that she decided to become a woman after noticing that she fit in more as a female than a male person.
Additionally, it was easier to make money. “I was formally a man for almost 25yrs, nothing to show for it. I kept struggling even with my certificate as a graduate of accounting in University of Lagos, nothing to still show for it. I saw how all my females friends were cashing out back then [sic],” she wrote.
Then she added, “So I gave my body more time, rubbing expensive creams, smelling good, using more of females body pills and looking out for myself. Boom more money keep coming… men admiring me, women giving me endorsements from right and left.”
Many have also wondered why Bobrisky decided to leave Nigeria for her surgery even comparing Columbia currency to Naira. Let’s see how they both compare.
Columbia currency to naira
Columbians spend the Columbian Peso, which is poorer than the Nigerian Naira. For example, 100 Columbian Peso is equal to 11 Naira (as of when this article was published). Thus $300,000 will amount to 1,057,674,000 Colombian Peso while it will be 118,350,000 Nigerian naira.
Bobrisky facing discrimination in Nigeria
It is actually not all rosy in the public scene for the transgender Bobrisky. A lot of people are actually yet to accept the celebrity as she wants to be seen. This has led to many persecutions that we will point out in the following subsections.
Disrespecting her personal preferences
There are many publications who still use the masculine pronouns, “he” and “him” for her despite Bobrisky’s preference to be addressed as a female. In some instances, top blogs use the pronouns mischievously while some just stubbornly want to maintain that she is a male as she was born that way.
You may also read: Jim Iyke, Teddy A, Ini Edo and 3 others bag new endorsement with Adonko Bitters
Police arrests Bobrisky
The first time many heard of Bobrisky was around 2013-2014 when Okuneye Idris Olarenwaju was allegedly arrested for dressing as a woman. Although not much came out of it, the incident marked the starting point of both her fame and troubles.
Following this early arrest, most of the challenges she faced were from internet trolls. However, one of Bobrisky’s most recent run-in with the police took place on 31st August 2019 on a day that was supposed to be her birthday. Men from the Nigeria Police Force had broken up Bobrisky’s widely publicised birthday party.
The law enforcement agents had sealed off the birthday venue. They had explained that it was to ensure that there was no “breach of public peace” and “no immoral display.”
