Hanks Anuku's Manager Clears Air on Viral Video Concerns

Moses Allen, the manager of veteran Nollywood actor Hanks Anuku, has addressed worries about his boss's mental health. This comes after a viral video showed Anuku on the streets of Abuja, which raised concern among many online.

The video appeared on Saturday. It showed Anuku in jeans, a black top, and sneakers, lying on a road in Wuse 2, Abuja. He was talking to himself while holding a disposable cup. Fans and netizens quickly expressed their worries about his condition and how he looked.

Speaking to PREMIUM TIMES on Monday, Mr Allen said Anuku is mentally stable and in good health. He explained, "I’ve been friendly with PREMIUM TIMES for a long time. They’ve always been nice to me when they had to report things that had to do with Hank or me. 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."

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. You know, he does not operate in the world where we do operate. Where normal people operate. A world of, you know, rat race, where you come in the morning, you have to go and hustle for what to eat. He does not really bother and does not live in a normal world as we do."

Mr Allen pointed out that the viral video shows Anuku neither naked nor abusing anyone. He questioned why people think he is mad. He suggested that Anuku could have been rehearsing for a role or imagining a scene.

“He’s a serious man, he’s a responsible man with family, with children, and everything. So, whatever you guys see there (in the video) is just like someone trying to… What is wrong with someone sitting down by the grass and then talking to himself and having a drink? What is wrong with that? 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, or that the whole world is now saying, ‘Ah, this man is mad.’ Mad for where? Like I told you, if you want, I can coordinate a conference call, and you can now even record the conversation, and now see if he sounds like a mad person, or like an artist,” his manager said.

He added that Anuku is in a better state of mind now than in previous years. He mentioned that an artist cannot think or live like an ordinary person.

“I know you guys are always very objective, PREMIUM TIMES, you guys don’t do all the soft sell stuff. If you’re interested, let me know, and I will coordinate it.

“I’ve been his manager for years. Kindly let the world know that the legend Hanks Chukwuemeka Anuku is sound and has, in fact, never been in a better mental state than now, please. He’s simply an artist, and I really wonder why the world expects artists to be like normal people.”

This is not the first time a viral video showing Anuku as mentally unstable has appeared online. In 2022, another video surfaced on social media showing the actor in a seemingly erratic state. Still, Mr Allen refuted those claims, saying that Anuku was not mentally ill as many feared.

In 2024, the actor told content creator Lucky Udu that the viral footage falsely showing him as mentally unstable harmed his acting career and left him traumatized. The Delta-born actor added that some colleagues used the video to blackmail him, damaging his career through what he called hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness.