“We are the complete opposite of the traditional Nigerian mother-daughter dynamic,” Tolullah Aiyela tells The Guardian.
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“I’ve had the traditional dynamic with my mother, and all my friends, bar none, have the traditional Nigerian dynamic to their mother-daughter relationships. Georgia and I have always been the exception.”

Tolullah’s remarkable story, one of love, loss, grief, strength and fame, was jettisoned into the spotlight after appearing in the ITVX series My Mum, Your Dad. It is a British reality dating show that brings single parents together in a romantic retreat, and unbeknownst to the stars, their grown-up children are watching every move and sometimes calling the shots. Unlike the harsh realities of some reality shows, this is a warm and insightful look at dating for the 50-somethings.

“Georgia came to me one day and said, ‘Mum, don’t be annoyed’. And as she was talking to me, I got an email from ITVX, and I said: ‘Oh no, what have you done?’.”

She explained that she’d put me up for a new dating show. “I said, ‘Never!” But she eventually persuaded me. “I thought: This is 2023. I’d just turned 50 in December last year. I’m trying to be open-minded.”

Tolullah and her daughter Georgia-Blu Begg were the first to be signed up. Tolullah was one of six women chosen from 6,000 who applied for the series. The series was a hit, making stars out of the contestants. When they get together for a reunion, OK! magazine and news agencies are there, and their dating lives – and house decor – continue to be under the spotlight.

But for Tolullah, life has taken an unexpected turn since. She’s become a role model to women, especially Black women of her age who are woefully underrepresented on television in Britain. Nor do we see much on television about people in their 50s dating.

It has also demonstrated a very un-Nigerian relationship between mother and daughter, a duo whose story is as interesting as anything the producers could muster on the show. The Guardian caught up with both of them in London to see how the show has affected their lives.
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An un-Nigerian dynamic
Tolullah is a 50-year-old interior designer, voice-over artist and presenter. Nigerians will know her as ‘Tolu’, the presenter of the midday show on Cool FM in Lagos for several years.

Georgia, her 28-year-old daughter, is a chartered accountant and content creator. They both live in London. As anyone who watched the show will attest, their relationship is kind, sharing, sometimes brutally honest, and always loving. It’s also remarkably open.

“We’re very comfortable with each other,” Tolullah tells The Guardian. “She is my dating partner in the sense that I ask her advice. I can tell her anything. When I go on a date, I text her, ” Yay or nay?

“In our dynamic, my daughter is the super-sensible, smart girl. I’m not saying I’m not smart, but she’s way smarter than me, and I really respect her advice.”

Georgia adds: “It’s definitely not your normal, traditional, mother-daughter relationship, especially in Nigeria. Because she had me so young, I feel like we were always a ‘two’. I would go with her everywhere; I was involved in my mum’s life. I guess now, being a bit older, it’s like we actually grew up together.”

From an early age, Tolullah has made a point of telling Georgia everything. “I made a decision, an intentional decision, that I was going to be that mother who’s never going to lose sight of her child, who’s never going to lose that dynamic of closeness so that if she ever needs me, I will always be the person that has her back.”

And when Georgia hit 15, Tolullah could sense her moving away from her, as many teenagers do.
“I thought the only way I’m going to break away from this is to show her my vulnerability. So, I remember telling her about how I lost my virginity. There are a lot of things Nigerian parents don’t say to you explicitly; they don’t really give you that talk about sex and boys. So, I told Georgia about my mistakes. And so, by doing that, it broke that cycle. And I have forever got this gorgeous, amazing relationship with her.”

Tolullah had Georgia at 22, in a relationship with someone that she says was never really meant to be. “At that time, I felt like I was losing myself. I wanted her to know who I really was, not this shell. I wasn’t confident; I didn’t speak up. I was mousy. I covered up.”

To counter this, Tolullah kept a diary, recording everything from her thoughts to flight ticket stubs, and when Georgia turned 18, Tolullah gave it to her.

“I have it here in front of me,” Georgia tells The Guardian on Zoom from her home in London. “I do read it sometimes. She is really in her raw, true self. It’s like what the show also taught me: that your parent is a human being. They’re not just ‘mum’ but a human being with real emotions and real feelings.”

Not only did this resonate with Georgia, but it also resonated with a huge number of women who saw the series. “Most of my followers are women who tell me how they felt encouraged, inspired and empowered by me,” Tolullah says. “And a lot of them are Black women, of all ages, who watched that show and came out of that experience thinking, ‘Wow, like it’s so cool to see someone like her’ on television.

“I never see black women of my age group, of my background, who are depicted well on television. I never see the kind of people I relate to and say, ‘Oh, that could be me’.”
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Life after the show
After her first relationship with Georgia’s father ended, Tolullah returned to Nigeria when her daughter was four.
“I’d never lived there, really, and it was a battle. All those lessons I’ve learned about life and character and strength and integrity are directly as a result of those years I spent in Nigeria.”

It was during her time in Nigeria that one of the defining moments of her life happened: the loss of the love of her life. “He was the man I was going to have kids with; he was the person I was in love with.”
Although Tolullah spoke about it on camera, it never made the final cut. It was part of her story that she wished had been show. But did the experience change how she approaches dating now?

“The first thing Georgia said to me was ‘gosh, I didn’t actually realise you were that strong’. But for people who are really open, welcoming and warm to me, I will be welcoming, open and warm to them too. And in a dating scenario, if a man is open to me from the beginning, I would give him that same respect.”
Is that something that you wanted to show your daughter about relationships?

“I’ve had some great relationships. She’s seen it all, but I’m always trying to show my child by example and communication. The more open you are to children, the more they will respect and understand you.

“A child has a natural bond with every parent, but I feel not everyone accesses it fully. That’s how intentional I was in raising her, and I still am. I still have to navigate being there for her through all her challenges and supporting her. But also to have that loving relationship and always give her the support and tools to do her own thing.”

https://www.instagram.com/tolullah/
https://www.instagram.com/georgiablu
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