Controversial actress, Lydia Forson has taken a swipe at Manasseh Azure Awuni, describing the latter as an attention seeker who is “ constantly searching for anything to keep yourself relevant and you start to enjoy the applause, likes, comments etc you receive from strangers”.

Miss Forson was forced to pen down her latest epistle after the ace investigative journalist scolded the actress for defending model, Hamamat Montia’s raunchy dressing to the recent VGMA.

“When you get wiser, you will look back and realize that the likes of Lydia Forson who encourage you to hold on to such lame-minded views really hurt you. Madness!” Manasseh fired on his Facebook page Sunday.

As expected, Miss Forson wasted no time in hitting back

Manasseh Azure Awuni(the moral crusader) | You HELLO’d me from the Other Side.

It’s Sunday, the one day the majority of the country is in church, and so for a few hours I get to pretend all is right in this country, and everyone is pretentiously friendly to each other.

Sunday, what a perfect day it can be, or so I thought. I’m binge watching The Good Wife, and I see an alert on my phone, ah, aren’t people supposed to be in church or atleast think I am too and leave me alone. Someones tagged me in a post from Manasseh, I don’t pay it any mind at first, like me he’s got a lot to say, and I’m guessing it’s got to be something interesting, so I’ll read later when my attention isn’t divided. But to my shock he’s “Helloing me from the other side”(in his not so good Adele voice)

I had to double check to see if this was his real page, and if he had in fact written such a thing about me. I mean I would never call him my friend, an aquaintance maybe, and although I’m guessing we don’t always see eye to eye I atleast have maintained some level of respect for him, assuming it’s mutual. So I didn’t understand where this was coming from, or maybe I did, because for a few months now I had noticed some snide comments from him,which although weren’t directed at me seemed to be about me and my “kind”, but I always shook it off and thought it was my mind getting the best of me. But perhaps I was shouldn’t have.

Anyway when I saw the post, I wanted to “Hello” him right back, (gosh I love Adele) because this was the same guy who before I ever met him had called to “support” me for one of my write ups.

But I decided against it, because he called for me on Social Media and I guess well, I had to “hello” him back on there too.

First of , Sir, i’ts ok to disagree, with things I write, what a boring world if we all did to agree, however if your only way to make a point is by hitting below the belt, then well, it’s more of an attack than an opinion.

If you really had an intelligent assessment of piece, you should have put it down, and perhaps convinced me with facts, analysis etc to see your point of view.

I’m not perfect, in fact I’m beautifuly flawed and able to own up to it if need be. I can say it’s why I think and reason the way I do; because I’ve opened my mind up to learn and refuse to restrict my self only to the world I know , something I think you can learn from. It’s why even after your low blow, I will still jump to your defense should anyone feel the need to insult you for it; what kind of person will I be if I fight against one injustice yet encourage another?

And yes, like you, many think of me as an attention seeker, which is laughbale because even if I were, which I’m not, I would be justified. I am,after all an actress, No?

So WTF do you think I’m on TV? To hide from the public?

Sorry I nearly got of track there. Yea, so I don’t thirst for attention, I’m quite ok with going unnoticed so long as my work gets the necessary recognition, because the last I checked, the “so called” attention you people like to speak of , hasn’t given me $1m yet, and I don’t know about you, but I ain’t tryna be no broke “celebrity”, no be that one I go chop. I only speak on issues I feel strongly about, hopefully to like minded people; and never want it to be about me,but the subject at hand( dare I say you’ve granted more interviews than me this year?) In the hopes that we can learn from each other and through our own small contribution be a part of the change this country so desperately needs.

” Think Abarriit” ( in my Lafa) what kind of human being in her right mind wants to be insulted all day? I must be really stupid to want that. You on the other hand are beginning to live for it, the attention I mean. Come on, don’t be shy, OWN it and it will set you Freeeeeeeeeee!!!! We met for the first time after your phone call at joy fm, I noted from our conversation that day, you were guided by your moral and religious standards, rather than reason on issues.

You seem to have a one track mind when it comes to issues, to you the world is black and white, with no grey areas and is the reason why you expect everyone to live up to you expectation. And the encouragement you recieve from your equally hypocritical “fans” only urge you on. So it’s not surprise that I find myself at the receiving end of you moral crusade. What baffles me is that the same man that spoke against Duncan William and his comments against women, now does pretty much the same. Fans will so that to you, make you lose focus.

Fame is an addictive drug Sir, one I’ve had my own dose of, and once you’re hooked it’s usually very hard to break away from. You’re constantly searching for anything to keep yourself relevant and you start to enjoy the applause, likes, comments etc you receive from strangers. Heck people who wouldn’t pay you any mind begin to recognize you and want to associated themselves with you, it’s a good feeling, I won’t lie.And you’re so intoxicated.

But you see, when you start to get smart, you realise it’s not really worth the hype and a lot of it isn’t real. You will open your eyes and start seeing between who’s smile reaches their eyes and who’s words touches your heart. You will know who’s just feeding your ego and who’s really on your side. Today you exhibited your misogynistic and chauvinistic side that you’ve managed to hide so well( I’m lying you haven’t, but in a society that doesn’t really know the difference you have maybe)

And you may swear up and down that you aren’t, and truly believe it, which I understand. Because our patriarchal society has made it all too normal, that people like you haven’t known anything else outside that. However the most dangerous type of misogynist is one who doesn’t know and thus cannot recognize the error of his ways. For that I forgive you. What I don’t forgive however is your lack of COMPRENSION, you’re a writer,that shouldn’t be. Because you’re already prejudiced to thinking that feminists or “so-called” feminist as you like to call us, are women who want to fight anything and everything just to prove a point, even when it’s wrong, you read my post about Hamamat with a one track mind. And for years it’s because of people like you that dissociated myself from that word. Mostly because I didn’t want to be seen as just another woman fighting all men .

But as I noted in my piece here by dissociated myself from the word, I was indirectly encouraging and feeding into that stereotype people like you have encouraged. Anyway, because of that prejudice, you left the journalist at home when you read my article and came in with “Manasseh the fighter of immorality”. If you had read it with your thinking cap, you would have noted that NO WHERE did I praise her dress or encourage her for it, although I still believe she has the right to wear what she wants.

My piece was about the society, people like you especially, that have turned yourself into judge and jury over someone’s life because of your own standards. Her apology, regardless of what she may say didn’t come from a place of regret, but because you people bullied her into it. You talked more about her personality, children, ex-husband, lack of a man and woman hood, looks etc than you did about the dress.

Had she been applauded and praised she wouldn’t have, because as a model, even after children she’s worn more provocative cloths, which she’s entitled to. Even so , she’s a mature woman so regardless of what I think had the right to apologize if she genuinely felt that she did something wrong and wanted to own up to it. But not because of the nasty comments some of you left on her wall. Why couldn’t we discuss the dress without her person? Why couldn’t we agree that it wasn’t the best choice if we felt so without berating her? This is the point you Sir, MISSED.

And THIS is what you’re encouraging without knowing it; a society that will all but flog you into submission if they think you’re wrong. Perhaps unlike other parts of the world YOU didn’t run her down the streets and strip her naked, but you YOU did with your words and that’s the same or worse, because wounds heal, but words don’t. So you see, played yourself boy.

Its the same mistake you made about the Catholic Church instisting that women should dress a certain way for service; (yea I caught you shade) again you were blinded by your sentiments that you missed the point the “so-called” feminist you mocked were making. They weren’t asking to go to church half naked,surely every church or place has a right to insist on a dress code, and if you can’t abide by it, have the right not to go. Their point was the reasoning behind it, that these women were tempting men. Ha. So what happens after church, in the real world with liberal dress codes. Would they blame the half naked woman for not making it to heaven????

P. S I’m tempted to believe that you don’t even know what the word feminist means, because if you did you wouldn’t be using it the way you do. Because we’re not just a bunch of women fighting men, we’re women and men fighting to define, establish and achieve equal political, economic ,personal and social rights for women. Once upon a time, I thought of you as a feminist, but I take it back because you still don’t get it.

Because if you did this, you would understand that, by telling a woman to dress a certain why so as not to tempt a man in “church”, is like a rapists blaming victim it’s her choice of cloths.

What then do you say to the little girl molested by her uncle, or even the boy by a stranger, like the doctor you helped put away; would you say it’s the boy’s fault for being sodomised if true? Because that’s the point you’re driving at.

Again I doubt anything I’ve written will change your mind, as people like you rarely want to be wrong. But I write this not for you, but the many people who follow you and who you have some influence over, in the hopes that you will not taint them with your mysogynist views.

It’s obvious you’re angry, perhaps at the fact that I don’t share the same views as you do on several issue. Lydia Forson, the lady you thought will be a crusader and fight by your side, turns out to be the total opposite.

I get it, you’re hurt and I’m sorry I didn’t live up to your “imagination”. But you need to eat some chocolate,cry and get over it. Oh and in the spirit of Sunday and a language you are more likely to understand,

Matthew 7:1-5

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye".